R&I - Save Me
by Fenway03
Summary: When Boston Police receive a mysterious e-mail from a killer asking them to rescue a kidnapped woman before she bleeds to death, Jane and Maura try to beat the killer at his sinister game… but soon realize that their opponent is much more malicious than they thought. Subtext Rizzles.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:**__ Okay, this crazy little story here is pretty much a fleshed-out version of a spec script of mine for the show, so hopefully, you'll be able to recognize the characters and their dynamics and quirks, and all that. It'll be about 50K words in the end and play out like a complete episode.. assuming you're actually interested to read the whole thing. So, let me know.. and no need for sugarcoating. I'm a big girl. :-)_

_Oh and also, if you find glaring language errors, feel free to whack me over the head with them — English isn't my native language, so that's the only way I'll learn. __Thanks! :-D_

_**Copyright:**__ Obviously, the characters have been created and further developed by Tess Gerritsen and Janet Tamaro/TNT. No infringement intended. Only this story is mine, and I guess, now it's yours, too._

* * *

It was a sunny October afternoon in the city of Boston. From the high-rises in the Financial District to the postcard brownstones of the Back Bay, the streets lay dipped in a warm and golden glow. Tourists meandered from the grassy greens of the Boston Common to the bustling Downtown shopping district and on to the winding paths of the Waterfront. The afternoon rush hour was just reaching its peak, and thousands of Bostonians poured in and out of MBTA busses and the trains of the 'T'.

Oblivious to the sights and sounds of the city, a bearded man in his late thirties sat in a silver sedan parked at the curb in a suburban neighborhood of Boston's southwest, his eyes fixated on the _PICTURE PERFECT _photo studio across the street and his fingers nervously tapping on the steering wheel.

When a young blonde woman in photogenic business attire left the studio, the man's pulse shot up in anticipation and his muscles stiffened. He watched her cross the street, get into a white compact car, and merge into traffic. Ignoring the nervous trembling of his hand, he started his own car and inconspicuously followed her, always remaining two or three cars behind but close enough to never let her out of his sight.

As he stoically tailed the white car, he once more went over the plan that had seized hold of his mind on the day he had accidentally bumped into the woman in the studio. She had painfully reminded him of Darlene, and he had been unable to shake off that feeling ever since. Even now, the grief from his loss was still as strong as it had been on the day Darlene had died. Too strong to allow him to return to business-as-usual. Too strong for him to sit idle and do nothing.

_My beloved Darlene…,_ he thought to himself. _Why did you leave me? Why? I just wanted to save you! _He clenched his fist and grimaced. _But I will make things right. I promise, my dear Darlene… _

He was torn from his thoughts when the white compact car pulled into the small parking lot of a convenience store in a quiet Chestnut Hill neighborhood. Darkness had begun to fall and the lot was almost empty.

The man stopped his sedan across the street and examined his surroundings, while the blonde woman got out of her car and disappeared into the store.

_No security cameras,_ he noted. _And no nosy neighbors in sight._ _If I could get behind her right when she returns to her car… _

Slowly, he pulled into the lot, parked his silver sedan to the left of the smaller white car, and took a deep breath. His hands were still trembling and a hint of doubt crept into his mind. _What if she senses something? What if she gets away?_

He slapped his own face and anxiously breathed in an out. _No, I gotta do this! This is the only way to fix everything._

The man zipped up his jacket, slid his hands into dark leather gloves, and put on a worn-out Red Sox baseball cap. He hid his dark eyes behind a pair of cheap sunglasses, reassuringly nodded to himself in the rear-view mirror, and got out of his car.

He walked over to the passenger side, opened the door, and bent down pretending to search for his wallet underneath the seat. From the corner of his eye, he kept peeking towards the entrance of the store, waiting for the woman to emerge.

When the blonde finally reappeared, brown paper bag with groceries in one hand and car keys in the other, the man stiffened and got into position. _This is it,_ he thought. A rush of adrenaline shot through his body.

As the woman approached her car, her thoughts were already revolving around her nightly routine after a stressful day at work. She would first calm herself down with half an hour of Yoga. Then she would take a long bath, maybe open a bottle of her favorite Chardonnay, and eventually fall asleep to the comforting purr of her furry cat on her lap.

But not today.

As soon as she reached the driver's door of her car, the man spun around, took two quick steps towards the blonde, and sent his right fist flying into her temple. The woman let out a groan, dropped her bag, and slumped down. Before her limp body could hit the ground, the man caught her in his arms and swiftly dragged her onto the passenger seat of his sedan.

Feeling a wave of exhilaration surge in his veins, the man slammed the passenger door shut, rushed to the driver's side, and slid back behind the wheel.

The engine of the sedan roared and its tires screeched as it sped off into the night.

The only clues remaining behind were the woman's deserted white car and her groceries scattered on the ground with a puddle of ruby juice beginning to spread around a leaking bottle.

* * *

At about the same time, slightly different but equally juicy liquids were being spilled in the great room of the upscale Beacon Hill home of Dr. Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A steady purple stream of Burgundy wine was leaking from an overthrown glass on Maura's stylish couch table and slowly making its way towards the table's edge, threatening to leave indelible stains on the immaculate carpet beneath.

Before disaster could strike, Maura soaked up the spilled wine with a napkin and swiftly removed any signs of the little accident. She picked up the glass and placed it next to her own in front of her, then scrutinized the assortment of half a dozen bottles of wine on the table. She arched her eyebrows and turned towards Detective Jane Rizzoli, who was sitting next to her on the couch and sheepishly watched as Maura cleaned up the mess.

"I'm so sorry… That glass really can't hold its liquor, I guess," Jane chuckled. Judging by the warm red blush on her cheeks, the brunette detective was enjoying quite a buzz.

"Gosh, how much have you had, Jane?" Maura asked incredulously.

The two women contemplated the arrangement of bottles, cheese, and chocolates on the table.

"How would I know? You're the one who keeps pouring me more!" Jane defended herself.

"Well, you're supposed to just try it, not to gulp it down like your beer!" Maura pointed out.

"Speaking of which…," Jane said and reached for a half-empty bottle of beer that stood slightly out of place next to the delicate wines.

"You really shouldn't be drinking this in between. You're confusing your gustatory calyculi," the medical examiner explained.

The detective gave her a blank look. "Now, _you're_ confusing _me_." She took another swig of her beer.

"I'm just saying you need to neutralize your palate or you won't be able to taste the fine nuances that distinguish these wines." Maura handed Jane a glass of water. "Besides, your head will thank you tomorrow."

Jane rolled her eyes but eventually obliged and traded her beer for the water. "Can't we just drink that wine like everybody else, Maura?"

"Well, of course, but I have to tell Chef Renaud which ones to order." She encouragingly smiled at Jane. "And given all the labor that goes into making these wines, we should show our appreciation and enjoy them the way they are meant to be enjoyed."

Jane reached for another bottle, filled her glass, and leaned back. "Fine, let me enjoy this one then."

"Wait, which one is that?" Maura took the bottle to check its label. "A 2006 Château Montrose… Its expressive bouquet and vigorous structure go very well with fine dark chocolate." She offered Jane the plate with the chocolate. "Here, try it."

"Am I actually allowed to eat it or should I just sniff at it?" Jane teased. When she noticed the medical examiner's impatient look, she picked a piece of chocolate and washed it down with a heavy drought of her wine.

Maura expectantly studied the brunette's face hoping for any sight of delight. "So?"

"So what?"

"How do you like it?"

"Well, Dr. Isles…," Jane tried to keep a straight face and snitched another piece of chocolate from Maura's plate. "I think this chocolate is really yummy!"

Maura sighed and poured herself some of the same wine. "You're not really helping."

Jane emptied her glass and tiredly sank into the cushions. "Just order whatever you like. I'll drink what you're drinking."

Maura took in the bouquet of the wine, examined its purple color with a practiced eye, and sipped from her glass. "Hmm… a fruity nose, and a firm and rounded texture," she noted, then took another sip and let it linger in her mouth. "Certainly an interesting balance between sweetness, acidity and tannins…"

Expecting another wisecrack from Jane, Maura turned to her right only to realize that the brunette had curled up into the couch and fallen asleep, her cheeks still flushed with wine.

Maura smiled and shook her head in amusement. "I guess we're done."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: And another chapter, so you'll get an idea where this is headed...**

* * *

The next day, Jane seriously regretted having agreed to that wine tasting with Maura. The detective sat slouched at her desk in the busy homicide squad room at Boston Police Headquarters and buried her throbbing head in her hands. She tried to remember when or how she had found her way to work this morning, but the rhythmic pain beating in her skull made it impossible to focus her thoughts. She rubbed her temples and involuntarily moaned. "Ow."

"Are you all right?" her partner, Detective Barry Frost, asked. She hadn't even noticed him arrive and take his seat opposite her desk.

Jane glanced up and immediately shielded her eyes from the morning light. "Never been better."

"Yeah, tell that to your face," Frost retorted. "What happened?"

"Maura forced me to join her for a little wine tasting session last night," Jane lamented, her voice even huskier than usual.

"I did not force you," Maura interjected from behind as she approached Jane's desk just in time to overhear the detective's complaint.

Jane wheeled around in her chair and faced the medical examiner, who looked as fresh and recuperated as ever.

"Okay, how can you look like… like _this_," Jane helplessly pointed at Maura's perfect appearance, "and I feel as if someone banged my head into one of your fancy wine barrels?"

"It's called a _barrique_," Maura corrected her. "And if you had listened to me and alternated between water and wine to compensate the diuretic effect of the copious amounts of ethanol you consumed, your head wouldn't be in a state of emergency right now."

"Another I-told-you-so and I swear you'll have me on your table before this day is over," Jane whimpered. She turned back to her desk and again adopted her hung-over version of _The Thinker_'s pose.

Maura gave her a sympathetic look and couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. "Fine. Let's go downstairs to get you some aspirin." The medical examiner pulled the detective up. "Come on."

When they were about to leave, Frost gasped and stared at his monitor in confusion. "What the heck?!"

The two women turned around. "What is it?" Jane asked.

"I'm not sure," Frost admitted and frowned, his eyes still glued to the screen. "The front desk just forwarded me this e-mail they received this morning. There's no text, just three pictures. It's… look at this!"

Jane and Maura stepped closer as Frost rotated his monitor towards them.

The three Polaroid-style photos filling his screen showed a blonde, pale woman in business attire, crouched into a dusky corner of a barely furnished room, looking into the camera with wide open, fearful eyes. Her hands were tied with a pair of white zip cuffs, and her right temple was bruised and swollen. A dark reddish stain on her blouse indicated a bleeding wound to her abdomen.

The detectives and the medical examiner weren't sure what was more frightening: the woman's pleading face or the photos' brutally brief caption that simply read: _SAVE ME._

* * *

As the man stood in the dusky room and watched the blonde woman drift back into unconsciousness, the rush of adrenaline running through his veins began to subside, only to be replaced by an even more captivating feeling of power and determination. He had known from the start that his plan would require him to tap into the darkest spheres of his emotions, but he hadn't anticipated the intensity and fierceness that his actions would unleash. And so, his thirst for revenge grew stronger with each of his breaths as his mind revisited the memories of the last few hours.

The drive from the convenience store's parking lot to his house had taken just over thirty minutes and given him enough time to go over the next steps of his plan. When the unconscious woman on the passenger seat had appeared to come around, he had calmly kept his left hand on the wheel to steer his car through the evening traffic and then decisively clutched her neck with his gloved right hand and squeezed her throat just long enough for her to be pulled back into her dark abyss.

Once they had arrived at his house, he had parked his silver sedan in the garage, hiding both the vehicle and his motionless passenger out of sight from any neighbors or walkers outside.

For several minutes, he had just sat there in the car with her, letting his eyes wander over her soft, innocent features. _I could still stop this,_ he had thought. _Just drop her off somewhere while she's still unconscious, and no one will ever know._ But then, images of Darlene had found their way back into his mind. Images of her lying on the floor, of her bleeding to death. And as Darlene's blood had spread through his mind, it had also drowned his doubts and hesitation.

Having regained his determination, he had gotten out of the car, marched over to the passenger side, and opened the door. He had grabbed the woman, heaved her over his shoulder, and carried her through the creaky connecting door into the house, where the next crucial stage of his plan would begin.

Panting from his heavy burden, he had brought the woman into the dusky, barely furnished living room, where all shades had been pulled down and a tiny lamp and some candles would provide sufficient light for him to execute his most difficult task. He had laid her down in a corner and quickly tied her hands with those white zip cuffs that he had already obtained two days after his plan had first sprung up in his mind.

Then he had reached for the sharp carpet knife lying on the table nearby and slowly approached the woman. He had bent down, lifted up her white silk blouse, and touched the warm, golden skin of her abdomen with the cold, metallic blade of the knife. And then he had hesitated.

_I can't do this,_ a repressed voice somewhere deep down inside of him had cried. _Oh, Darlene, why do you make me do this? All I wanted was to be with you. My dear Darlene…_

As the painful memories of Darlene had seized every fiber of his body, he had let the knife sink back down and dropped on his knees, silently weeping and staring at the unconscious woman in front of him.

Hours had gone by during which he had just sat there with her in the dark. At some point, he had eventually gotten up and briefly paced the room, but soon, he had cowered next to her again, still contemplating what to do.

_No, it's too late, _he had finally reprimanded himself. _I cannot back down, now! She is here, and she is ready, and I must do what has to be done!_

After one last breath of doubt, he had clutched the carpet knife in his right hand and carefully made a small incision in the tender flesh of the woman's skin near her right kidney.

When the pain from the cut had shot through the woman's body and her eyes had fluttered wide open, he had stoically pressed his left gloved hand over her mouth, held her hands down with his right, and pinned her against the cold wall behind. And then he had simply waited and watched as she had twitched and jerked, trying to break free, tears welling up in her eyes, panic spreading over her face.

After a while, her desperate struggle had cost her all the strength that had been left in her body, and her resistance had slowly ebbed away, giving him all the time he needed to take several pictures and send that e-mail to the police.

And as the man now stood over her, blood was still steadily seeping from her fresh wound, leaving a dark reddish stain on the white silk of her blouse and gathering in a small puddle on the ground next to her leg.

If his incision had been precise, the woman would now slowly bleed to death, with maybe seven or eight hours to live.

During those hours, he would send a few more e-mails to the police, all of them anonymized and redirected, and urge them to find the blonde woman, and save her, and make him forget that they hadn't saved Darlene.

And somehow, it all made sense to him, no matter how twisted his logic might seem.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Anybody already figured out the killer's identity and motive? Peeps keep saying they can solve the whole whodunit on TV five minutes into an episode.. so, how about this one here? :-)

* * *

In the homicide squad room at Boston Police Headquarters, Jane, Frost, and Maura were still huddled over Frost's monitor when Sergeant Vince Korsak approached from behind. Dressed in a brown jacket that clearly dated back to an era when detectives would still work with paper and pencil instead of computers and PDAs, the gray-haired trouper curiously eyed the small gathering around Frost's desk.

"What's going on here? Do we have another 'Mean Detective Jane' episode?" he teased with a smirk.

"I would very much prefer that," Jane sighed without turning around.

Immediately sensing the seriousness in her tone, Korsak peeked over her shoulder to see the source of everybody's concern. "What the hell?!" he gasped at the sight of the image of the bleeding blonde woman. He squinted his usually cheerful eyes and questioningly looked at his three colleagues.

"An e-mail with these photos was sent to the front desk this morning," Frost explained, the shock about this unexpected message popping up in his inbox still written all over his face. "No further text, no traceable IP data, nothing. The front desk forwarded it to us because they weren't sure if someone was just pulling one hell of a joke or if this was real."

"And it is real?" Korsak asked, not sure whether he really wanted to hear the answer.

"We don't know yet," Jane said and gave her old partner a worried glance. "But the front desk ran the e-mail through their tracing programs, and it appears that whoever sent this is very eager to hide its origin."

For a moment, the four of them silently contemplated the mysterious e-mail and its shocking attachment. The pleading look in the woman's eyes certainly appeared real and convincing. And the fact that someone had managed to outwit several of the department's tracing programs added another level of authenticity to the message.

"So, what are we going to do?" Frost finally asked.

Jane arched her eyebrows. "I guess, for now, we'll keep trying to trace it and check if anybody has reported this woman missing."

"What about sending a reply to the address it came from?" the medical examiner suggested.

Jane, Frost, and Korsak exchanged uneasy looks.

"Well, if this is for real, then we don't know whom we're dealing with. This could backfire," Jane worried, and both Frost and Korsak nodded in agreement. "Let's first try to find out where this is coming from."

Frost got up and grabbed his laptop from his desk. "I'm on it," he announced and headed towards the BRIC, the intelligence center adjacent to the homicide squad's bullpen.

Jane straightened up and gave Korsak a nudge. "Okay, we'll check NCIC, run an image search, see if we find anything."

"Is there anything I can do?" Maura asked, eager to assist.

Jane paused and suddenly remembered her headache. For the past few minutes, she had been so occupied with that e-mail and its possible implications that the throbbing pain in her skull had been pushed to the bottom of her mind's priority list. But now that they had initiated their usual routine, her brain got a chance to reevaluate its current condition and sent her a sharp reminder that any further mental activities would require appropriate headache relief.

The detective looked at the medical examiner with dark puppy-dog eyes. "Uh… you said something about aspirin…?"

Maura's features softened and she affirmatively brushed over Jane's arm as she headed towards the door. "I'll be right back."

"Thank you," Jane called after her and immediately grabbed her temples when her own loud voice sent another wave of pain through her head. "Ow. Can this day be over already?!"

* * *

In the late morning hours, the blonde woman was still crouched in the man's living room, still bleeding, still unconscious. The man had sat down just a few feet away at the worn wooden table in the middle of the room, a state-of-the-art laptop computer in front of him. The dim light of a flickering candle cast dancing shadows on the wall behind. He was sweating and breathing from the top of his lungs and nervously staring at the monitor.

_Something's not right,_ he worried. _She shouldn't be unconscious all the time._

With rhythmic clicks of his mouse, he browsed through various websites and offline files containing medical charts, descriptions of surgical procedures, and images of the human anatomy.

_I should have taken more time with the incision. Why did I haste this? I have waited ten damn months for this, and now I'm fucking it up in ten minutes?!_

He looked down at his left hand. It was trembling again. Gone was the frightening calmness that had possessed him when he had made the incision.

_Fuck._

He peeked towards the woman. Suddenly, the thought of her pending untimely passing sent shivers down his spine.

_Hold it together, damn it! Stop acting like a fucking sissy and focus. You're doing this for Darlene! Oh, Darlene…_

The computer buzzed as he frantically opened more browser windows and files. All the information he found confirmed his suspicion.

_I must have done something wrong._

He got up, hesitantly approached the woman, and touched her motionless legs with his foot to check for any reaction. When the woman didn't move, he bent down and felt her pulse.

_Okay, she's still alive. There's still time. I'll just have to speed things up a little and maybe give them a small hint. It's all good. _

The man rushed to the table and grabbed the DSLR camera lying next to the computer. He pressed a few buttons and brought the lens to life before hurrying back to the woman. When she still didn't move, he repeatedly shook her shoulders and slapped her cheeks in an attempt to wake her.

"Come on, you're not done yet!" he commanded with a raspy voice.

As weak signs of life returned to the woman's face and her eyes opened in terror, the man quickly got up and focused his camera until her weary, pale body filled the small screen on the back of the device. He hit the shutter release. _Click._ A frozen still of his victim briefly flashed over the camera's screen. The man looked through the eyepiece again. _Click. _Another photo captured the woman's turmoil.

He switched to the camera's replay mode and checked the new additions to the frightening collection already stored on the camera's memory card. When he was satisfied, he turned the camera off and scuffed back to his desk, while the woman let out a sob and a sigh and gave in to the darkness pulling her away from this life.

The man plugged his camera into his computer, opened his photo editing software, and transferred the files onto his hard drive. Now fully focused on his task at hand again, he was completely oblivious to the woman's fight for her last breaths of life just a few feet away.


	4. Chapter 4

**_A/N:_**_ Thanks for the follows & reviews! Here's another chapter.. don't want to leave you hanging for too long. I'll try to upload one or two more today.. life and work keep getting in the way though. Doh!_

* * *

Shortly after 2 p.m., Jane, Maura, and Frost were still glued to their seats at two desks in the BRIC at Boston Police Headquarters, desperately trying to figure out what kind of sick scheme someone had served them this morning with that mysterious first e-mail.

Frost sat behind a desk in the front of the room, typing away on his keyboard and diligently executing one application after another in an attempt to crack the anonymization algorithms that still made it impossible to determine the e-mail's origin.

At a desk behind the young whizkid detective, Jane had leaned back in her chair and was staring at the monitor of her computer, her hands resting on the keyboard, her mind racing through a routine catalog of questions. _Who is behind this? What do they want? How much time do we still have? Why let the woman bleed to death and send us an untraceable e-mail asking us to save her?_ Her eyes focused on her screen with the photos of the bleeding woman and their provocative caption. _SAVE ME._ The two words echoed through Jane's mind. _Save me. Save me. But how?_ The detective closed her eyes and rubbed the top of her nose.

Next to the brunette, Maura was browsing through a database of missing persons to check for any hints on the identity of the blonde woman in the photos on Jane's screen. A rather mundane task like this wouldn't normally be part of her responsibilities — she was the Chief Medical Examiner after all — but the morning in the morgue had been quiet and Senior Criminalist Chang had promised to notify her immediately in case of any urgent matters. Thus, Maura had gladly offered her help and joined the detectives in the BRIC. Her task wasn't very difficult — in fact, she felt rather unchallenged by it — but her presence allowed her to keep an eye on Jane. Over the past few weeks, her best friend had often appeared unusually quiet and something was clearly bugging her. But so far, Jane hadn't talked about it, and Maura knew it would be pointless to push her. Sooner or later, Jane would certainly confide in her, but until then, Maura could only wait and be there for her friend whenever Jane might need someone by her side.

As the medical examiner glanced over and noticed the detective massaging her head, she wondered if the effect of the aspirin she had given her had already begun to wear off, but before she could ask, Sergeant Korsak entered through the glass doors.

"Anything yet?" he asked.

Both women shook their heads.

"Maybe it was some kind of sick joke after all…," Korsak mused, more to himself than to the others.

Jane sighed. "It'd be one hell of a joke… Someone puts in this much effort to conceal their identity and to create such a realistic scene… I mean, they'd want some validation, right? Some sort of recognition…?"

"It could be a variation of the Munchhausen Syndrome by Proxy," Maura pointed out. "People suffering from this disorder deliberately harm others, often those entrusted to their care, and then attempt to direct attention to themselves when their victims get saved." She pointed at the photos' caption on Jane's screen. "This message — this plea to 'save me' — might not refer to this woman but to whomever did this to her."

Jane considered Maura's explanation, and even though she lacked the medical examiner's psychological expertise, she had dealt with enough emotionally unstable perpetrators during her years as a homicide detective to know that the world out there was full of crazies to whom even the most absurd logics would somehow make sense. Her experience and her gut instincts told her that this e-mail wasn't just a sick prank but something far more serious.

Her suspicion would be confirmed the very next minute when Frost turned around and sighed. "We got another e-mail."

Jane, Maura, and Korsak arched their eyebrows in unison, their faces signaling him to reveal whatever bad news had just arrived in his inbox. With a few mouse clicks, Frost brought the new message to the big screen on the wall and opened its attachment.

The photos were as gruesome as the first ones, except that this time, there were only two pictures and the woman looked even paler now, barely able to open her eyes, her blouse soaked in blood. Similar to the first message, this one also included a brief but poignant caption: _TICK-TOCK._

Jane swallowed hard, while Maura instinctively covered her mouth with her hand. Frost and Korsak just shook their heads in disbelief.

"Wait, there's actually more," Frost uttered in surprise and scrolled down to reveal one additional line of text: _FIND HER CAR & YOU'LL FIND HER._

"Find her car and you'll find her?" Jane read out aloud and frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Korsak shrugged. "Maybe there's another hint in her car that'll lead us to her? Like some sick scavenger hunt…"

Jane nodded to her partner. "Frost, can you check our listings of recently missing or stolen cars? Also, see if any cars have been towed but not yet claimed!"

"Sure, hold on." Frost opened another application and mumbled to himself as he went through recent records of stolen vehicles. "Half a dozen reports last night… even more over the past week…"

Jane studied the photos of the blonde again. "She looks like a business woman, so focus on upscale cars and newer models. And ignore all minivans and SUVs… Since no one has reported her missing yet, she's probably living alone."

"Wait!" Frost cut her off. "I think I got it." He let his fingers fly over the keyboard again while everybody watched him in expectation. "We received a notification about an abandoned car in a parking lot down in Chestnut Hill… A white compact car deserted in front of a convenience store… The store owner found it this morning with a bag of groceries and someone's purse on the ground nearby."

With two mouse clicks, the young detective opened a file and sent it to the big screen on the wall. "The car belongs to this woman."

There was no need for any further explanation as everybody immediately recognized the blonde woman from the photos in the e-mail.

"The woman's name is Karen Newman…," Frost began to read from his screen. "A bank manager from Brookline… You were right — no husband or kids. Also no criminal record, no history of abuse or anything like that. Not even a parking violation on file."

"What about her parents? Relatives?" Korsak asked and leaned over Frost's desk.

Frost pulled up a newspaper article on the flat screen on the wall for everybody to see. A larger-than-usual photo depicted a ceremony for an elderly man in suit and tie receiving flowers from a yuppie grinning into the camera. The headline of the associated article read: _AFTER 40 YEARS, BANK BIDS GOODBYE TO BELOVED MANAGER_.

"Her father was a successful bank manager," Frost summarized from the article's text. "Looks like she followed in his footsteps and has been slowly working her way up. Maybe someone is after her old man's retirement funds?"

"Hmm…," Jane leaned back and frowned, her mind already racing through all the possible reasons for the woman's kidnapping. "This doesn't feel like an ordinary ransom scheme."

Maura studied the photos on Jane's screen again. "An injury like that does add a certain urgency to a ransom request."

"Yeah, except that whoever is behind this hasn't really requested anything yet," Jane objected but then noticed the worry etched over the medical examiner's face as she absentmindedly stared at the photos. "How much time do you think we still have?"

Maura uncomfortably wiggled on her chair. "I can't possibly tell from just a photo."

Jane rolled her eyes at the blonde's usual hesitation to speculate. "Fine. Hypothetically speaking then, let's say a young, healthy woman gets stabbed in her stomach, like this…," she pointed at the photos. "How long would it take for her to bleed out if she doesn't get medical treatment in time?"

The medical examiner heaved a sigh. "Assuming that only a small venous blood vessel has been cut, anywhere between four to maybe ten hours, depending on her health, the exact position and severity of the wound, and—"

"Okay, okay, I get it. You can't tell." Jane gave up and buried her pounding head in her hands. And this time, no aspirin would make the pain go away. She loved her job, but in moments like this, she often wondered whether her work made any difference at all. Sure, she had brought many criminals to justice, but no matter how many years the perps would serve, their victims would still be gone. _Dead and forgotten_. When Jane felt everybody else's eyes rest on her, she pushed those nagging doubts back into her subconscious. _It's not too late yet. This woman might still be alive. I can save her._ She took a deep breath and straightened up. "Alright, let's ask them what they want."

Korsak rubbed his chin. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, the ball's in our half. We gotta do something," she declared with a fierce and determined look on her face. When Maura, Frost, and Korsak nodded in agreement, she reached for her keyboard and opened her e-mail client.

* * *

The man stared at the unsigned e-mail from Boston Police Department that had just popped up on his screen.

_What do you want?_ it asked in bare letters.

He pondered the question and went over his plan again. Everything had seemed very clear just a few hours ago, but now that someone actually asked him, he realized that he wasn't as sure as he had thought. Four little words — _What do you want?_ — brought back those quiet nagging doubts in the sane part of his brain that he had successfully suppressed over the past few months.

_I want Darlene back,_ he wished. In the midst of the flurry of doubt seizing his mind, this was the one thing he knew for sure. _I want her back. I need her back!_

As the man sat there and the tormenting images of Darlene bleeding to death flashed up in his mind's eye again, the other blonde woman in the dark corner nearby let her head sink to her chest and slumped down.

The thudding sound of her head hitting the floor pulled him from his thoughts and he looked up. The woman didn't move anymore, and the puddle of blood next to her legs was now covering almost as much space on the ground as her limp body.

The man dragged himself from his chair and took one step towards the woman. Then another. And another.

_I did it. _

He reached his victim and bent down. He touched her neck, almost gently in comparison to the way he had choked her before, and searched for her pulse. There was none.

_She's gone._

He studied her ghostly white body for a few minutes and just cowered there with her in the dark, somehow feeling deep down inside that he should pay her his last respect.

Eventually, he got up again, inhaled a deep breath of the dusty air, and went back to the table, every fiber of his body filled with that strange, frightening calm again.

He picked up his camera, focused on the dead woman, and took another series of pictures. _Click, click, click._ The monotony of his actions matched the monotony of the thoughts gripping his mind.

_I have to try again. I have to try again. I have to try again._


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: **Here ya go. Let's have some quality time with our friendly killer, shall we? :-)_

* * *

Several hours had passed at Boston Police Headquarters, and they still hadn't received any response from the mysterious kidnapper. Jane was pacing back and forth between the desks in the homicide unit's bullpen, her eyes fixated on a printout of the two e-mail messages. Sergeant Korsak was huddled over his desk and worriedly glanced towards the brunette detective.

"Take a break, Jane, and get something to eat," her former partner suggested. "I'll stay here and let you know as soon as we receive any response." Noting Jane's fierce expression and her apparent unwillingness to let go, not even for a brief moment, Korsak gave her a warm smile. "There's not much you can do right now. At least not before we have any idea where the woman is being held."

Jane let her arms sink down and stretched her shoulders. Her bones felt stiff, her muscles tense. "Alright. But I'll stop by the lab again to check if they have finally traced those e-mails. It can't be that hard, can it?"

Korsak shrugged. "Don't ask me. Whenever I can't sleep, I just imagine Frost jabbering about his toys. Works like a charm."

Jane couldn't help but smile. Vince Korsak was always good for a little relief. At first sight, he might appear like a reserved veteran cop who had seen too much in his long career to still be able to enjoy life. But Jane knew him better than that. He had a good heart, with a particular soft spot for stray animals, and he was like a father to her. Whenever a tough case would fret her and lead her to ignore her most basic needs — eating, sleeping, and all that —, Korsak would intervene and keep her on track. Just like today.

She was about to follow the older sergeant's suggestion and head downstairs to fill her empty stomach when her cell phone rang. Jane glanced at the display. "Speaking of your geeky friend…," she nodded to Korsak, then spoke into her phone. "Hey, Frost, what have you got?"

A few miles away, on that ominous parking lot in Chestnut Hill, Detective Frost stood in front of the convenience store, while a Crime Scene Response Unit behind him was examining the scene.

"I talked to the store owner," Frost informed Jane at the other end of the line. "Says he's known Karen Newman for a while, and she'd come here once or twice a week after work." The detective looked over his shoulder and watched as Karen Newman's white compact car was being towed to be brought to BPD for further inspection. "He recognized her photo in her purse on the ground, which is why he called us right away about her abandoned car. But other than that, he hasn't noticed anything suspicious."

Back at BPD Headquarters, Jane scratched her head. "And no surveillance cameras at all?" she asked her partner on the phone.

"Nope. The owner says it's a quiet neighborhood and people don't want anybody snooping around and watching them mind their own business." He paused for a moment as the tow truck went into reverse and its obnoxiously beeping alert signal drowned everything else. "They'll be bringing in the woman's car in a few. Maybe our techs will find something. But for now, this is a dead end."

Jane sighed. "Okay, thanks. Let me know when you get back, alright?" She hung up and tiredly looked at Korsak. "Frost got nothing. We're still stuck at square one. I'm gonna head downstairs and—"

She was interrupted by Maura emerging from around the corner, with her usual positive smile and that sparkle in her eyes that had brightened Jane's darkest days at work so often before.

"Anything new?" the medical examiner inquired.

"Nope," Jane shook her head. "I was just about to come downstairs. Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

"Yes, I'd like that. But no beer for you today," Maura decided, earning herself an annoyed eye-rolling from Jane. "And no wine either," she quickly added as they strolled towards the elevator.

Jane groaned in feigned disappointment. "Darn, I've been looking forward to another round of wine tasting all day!"

* * *

As dusk began to descend upon the city of Boston, the bearded man was again seated at his wooden table in the dimly lit living room of his house just a few miles away from BPD. The dark corner that had cradled Karen Newman during her last hours on earth was clean and empty, with small puddles of acid cleaners gathering in the cracks of the wooden floor. A dark tint of red on the planks was the only reminder the blonde woman had left behind. Her body was gone and would soon be found by some random, unlucky stranger who might have just wanted to go for an evening stroll, or who had to walk the dog, or who simply happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the flickering candle light, the man was spooning up cheap Ramen noodles from a plastic cup, occasionally slurping and leaving tiny stains of soup both on his sleeve and on the table. He didn't bother though and instead focused on his laptop computer. The screen was filled with several pages of portraits and headshots of young women, some of them strikingly beautiful, others rather low-key, and some even a little nerdy. He browsed through dozens of pictures until he found a woman who resembled the dead blonde from the convenience store. He double-clicked the picture and pulled up associated data on her identity. His cursor and his eyes skimmed the information in order to decide whether or not the woman met his criteria. _You're not as beautiful as my dear Darlene,_ he thought. _No one is. No one ever will be. _He squinted and clicked through several more photos of the same woman, all of them taken in the same studio setting. _But, I guess, you're close enough._ He selected her file and moved it into another folder, which already contained half a dozen candidates. _The good ones go into the pot, the bad ones go into your crop,_ he thought with a smirk and continued the process of selecting and discarding suitable women the way normal people would select clothes from a shopping catalog.

Once he was done with his noodles and satisfied with his selection of women, the man compiled their pictures and related data on two pages and opened a printer interface. It took him less than thirty seconds to arrange all items and choose his desired print settings. Clearly, his computer skills were above average and he could recite all shortcuts and commands in his sleep. He sent off the print job, leaned back and stretched his arms, and waited for the quietly buzzing printer on a cupboard nearby to spill out the pages with his choice of women who all shared the unfortunate fate of having made it into the man's final selection.

After a few minutes, he shut down the computer, dragged himself out of his chair, and straightened his stiff bones. Even though he hadn't slept for more than four or five uninterrupted hours on any given night over the past ten months, the stress and strenuous efforts of the last 24 hours made him feel even more tired and exhausted than usual. The soreness in his muscles painfully reminded him of his little excursion in the afternoon when he had to carry the dead blonde back to his car, manhandle her into the trunk, drive her to a quiet park a few miles away, and eventually heave her out of the trunk and dump her in the bushes on the side of the road. He could have sworn that the woman had been much lighter when he had carried her into his house.

_Fuck, who cares. She wasn't good enough and she's gone. It's time to try again. _

The man shook his head to clear his mind from all distractions and utterly useless regrets. Once he had regained his composure, he walked over to the printer and picked up the two pages with his selection of candidates for his next attempt at fixing what had broken him almost exactly ten months before. Satisfied with the printouts' quality, he turned off the printer, grabbed his jacket and laptop, blew out the candle, and headed towards the garage.

_This time, it will work._


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N:** Alright, here's the last chapter for today... It's still setting up a few things for later... hope I don't bore you too much. Have a fabulous night everyone!_

* * *

Shortly after 8 p.m., Jane and Maura sat at their preferred table in the Division One Café on the ground floor of Boston Police Headquarters, both with a plate of fries and veggies in front of them. The detective rested her head on her hand and absentmindedly stared into the distance. The medical examiner gave her a worried look.

"Still got your headache?"

"Nah, it's okay," Jane sighed. Her hangover from the previous night was indeed gone, but she would rather have another wine-induced headache than those nagging worries filling her mind. _Save me. Save me._ She still couldn't get those words and the pictures of Karen Newman out of her head. She wanted to save her, and she could certainly use a positive outcome after several weeks of rather depressing cases at work, but somewhere deep inside, she already knew they wouldn't find the woman in time. She peeked at Maura and watched her relish some of the crispy, golden fries. Despite spending most of her days examining dead people and determining their often tragic causes of death, Maura still managed to preserve her positive outlook on life and usually lifted Jane's mood as well. Over the past few weeks, however, Jane had found it increasingly difficult to ignore all the tragedy and despair that she encountered on a daily basis. She wasn't really sure why or when it had started. Maybe she just needed a break, a few days of vacation. _Geez, I would even consider joining Maura for another of her spa weekends with mudbaths and fancy lemon water,_ Jane thought.

"Are you thinking about that woman?" the medical examiner pulled her out of her thoughts and studied her face.

"We won't find her in time, Maura."

Before Maura could respond, Angela Rizzoli snuck up to their table. "What woman?" the always-exuberant Rizzoli matriarch inquired with feigned casualness.

"A kidnapped woman who's probably dying as we speak," Jane explained with a heavy voice that instantly wiped all joy from Angela's face.

"Oh."

Maura soothingly placed her hand on Jane's. "Come on, we don't know that yet. Try to stay positive."

The detective arched her eyebrows. "Yeah, tell that to Karen Newman." Slightly taken aback by her own cynical tone, Jane caught Maura's and Angela's concerned looks and forced a smile. "Sorry, I'm just having a really bad day."

Her motherly instincts kicking into full force, Angela stepped closer, ready to give Jane the hug she needed more than anything right now. Or at least that was how Angela interpreted the situation. Jane, however, immediately squirmed away with an annoyed groan.

"Ma, no! Not here!"

Visibly disappointed, Mama Rizzoli pouted her lips and settled for a brief comforting squeeze of her daughter's arm. "Can I at least bring you a milkshake to make you feel better?"

"Yes," Jane said with a conciliatory smile. "Thanks, Ma."

The good soul of the Division One Café scurried away and disappeared through the kitchen door behind the counter.

When Jane still didn't pay any attention to the food in front of her and instead let her eyes aimlessly wander around, Maura decided to give her one last push. "Those fries are really good. I might have to eat yours, too, if you don't want them."

Unable to resist the medical examiner's endearing smile, Jane finally gave in and began to eat her fries. "Don't you dare."

As soon as the warm food reached her taste buds, the detective actually begun to enjoy the rather spontaneous dinner and the relaxing company of her best friend. At least for a little while, her worries about the case were forgotten and, much to Maura's delight, her face brightened up a little.

Just moments later, another distraction in the form of Lieutenant Sean Cavanaugh entered the café. With his calm and reserved demeanor, he could easily be mistaken for an accountant or a city clerk, but behind his soft crust hid the strong heart of a man who had once loved and lost but nevertheless got back up every time someone knocked him down. The lieutenant shyly looked around, searching for the woman who was still in the kitchen preparing a milkshake for her daughter.

Jane suspiciously watched her boss, and when their eyes briefly met, he gave her a polite nod before sliding onto a stool at the counter to wait for Angela.

Noticing Jane's uncomfortable stare, Maura turned her head until she spotted Cavanaugh and realized the cause of Jane's concern. "Oh, looks like my guest house will remain dark again tonight."

"Again?" Jane grimaced. "How often has she been out with him lately?"

"How would I know? I'm not spying on your mother, Jane," Maura declared indignantly, but Jane's piercing look immediately made her fess up. "Well… It's been quite a few times…"

Jane rolled her eyes and groaned. A second later, Angela emerged from the kitchen, a strawberry milkshake in her hands, and instantly locked eyes with Cavanaugh. The two lovebirds exchanged a quick kiss, and the older Rizzoli woman absentmindedly put the milkshake on the counter while giggling at the sweet-nothings the lieutenant kept whispering into her ears.

"So much for my milkshake," Jane sighed.

"You should be happy for her," Maura recommended.

"Why?" The detective squealed in her phoniest teenager imitation with added jazz hands. "Because I'll soon be getting a new daddy?"

Maura suppressed a chuckle. "No, but she's been through so much…"

"I know, I know," Jane conceded.

"Besides," the medical examiner added, "statistically speaking, at her age, your mother only has a 23% chance of remarrying. Even less if she prefers a partner who is still mentally and sexually able to fulfill all her needs."

"Eww, stop!" Jane shrunk back in disgust. "I'm officially putting my mother's _needs_ on the list of things you're not allowed to talk about while we're eating."

They both laughed and decided to let Angela and Cavanaugh have a moment to themselves.

"I am happy for her though," Jane added in all honesty before reaching for another of her fries. Maura rewarded her with an approving smile, but their sweet moment of relief was interrupted when Frost rushed into the café and headed straight to their table as soon as he spotted them.

"We just got a third e-mail," he blurted out but then hesitated when he realized that his sudden arrival had interrupted the two women's first meal in hours. Jane still held her fork with two fries halfway to her mouth in anticipation of his bad news. Frost hated having to ruin their night, but he had no choice. "Karen Newman is dead."

Maura's face darkened and she worriedly glanced at Jane. The detective let her fork sink back down and pushed her unfinished food away. "Damn."

* * *

As Jane, Maura, and Frost emerged from the elevator and re-entered the homicide squad's bullpen, Korsak was standing bent over Frost's computer and squinting at an expanded e-mail header filling the screen. Clearly, the cryptic list of X-envelope data, MIME types, TNEF correlators, return paths, and numerous other information sounded like Klingon to him.

"Let me see," Jane asked tersely.

Korsak stepped aside, knowing quite well that this was not the time for elaborate courtesies. "Same style as before," he announced dryly.

Jane clicked away the header information and opened the e-mail's attachment. When another photo like the ones they had already received earlier that day popped up, the lifeless body of Karen Newman filled the screen. She lay on a wooden floor, her ashen skin dipped in a pool of her own dark red blood, which had already begun to dry. Her eyes were closed, her fingers clenched in one last attempt to hold onto her life. Except for the missing crime scene markers, the picture easily could have been mistaken for an official evidence photo from any given murder case.

And similar to the previous photos, the gruesome scene in this final picture came with a plain two-word caption: _TOO LATE._

For a moment, Jane, Maura, Frost, and Korsak just stared at the screen, hanging their heads in a mix of anger and frustration.

_Too late._ The words reverberated through Jane's mind. _Too late. I couldn't save her. _She was used to dealing with the most horrendous crimes, with violence and anger, with death and despair. But being forced to watch idly how an innocent woman slowly died alone in the dark corner of a room probably not very far away had ruthlessly ripped her out of her comfort zone. She needed to act, to go out there, to fulfill her duty and save those she had vowed to protect. But today, she couldn't do anything. And it tore her apart inside. _I couldn't save her. I failed._

Maura instinctively sensed the detective's inner turmoil. She comfortingly patted Jane's arm and felt her touch ease the brunette's tension right away. At least for now. But given Jane's often withdrawn behavior over the past few weeks, she wondered how long her best friend would let her worries eat her up inside before finally finding the courage to confide in her.

"We still don't know where those e-mails are coming from?" Jane asked.

Frost shook his head. "No. Whoever is behind this relayed them multiple times, sent them through different anonymizers, stripped off all traceable data, and eventually used hijacked computers to deliver his messages."

Korsak gave his younger colleague a blank stare. "In plain English?"

"We have no way to determine the exact origin of those e-mails," Frost conceded.

Their gloomy gathering was interrupted by the simultaneous beeping of their phones. And as they checked their displays, whatever optimism had still been lingering in the room was instantly gone. Just like the life from Karen Newman's body.

Jane swallowed hard but tried to keep her composure. "Well, looks like we have a body."

* * *

It was close to 10 p.m., dark and drizzling, when Jane's blue sedan arrived at the crime scene near the Neponset River Reservation in the south of Boston. The detective was behind the wheel, with clenched fingers and narrow eyes, and maneuvered past several parked police cars as well as two TV vans with half a dozen reporters anxiously pacing up and down. Next to her, Maura sat tensely in the passenger seat, already gathering her bag and equipment needed for her preliminary examination of the body at the scene.

When they reached a police road block close to Cedar Grove Cemetery, Jane rolled down her window and waved her badge at one of the two officers guarding the road. "Rizzoli, Homicide," she announced, then pointed at Maura. "And this is Dr. Isles, Chief M.E."

The cop nodded, pulled the road block out of the way, and signaled her to pass through. Once Jane's sedan had made it past the two uniformed men, they put the road block back into place and dutifully held out in the rain.

Moments later, Jane stopped her car by the roadside and quickly grasped the flurry of activity unfolding in front of them. The area had been sealed off and several men in uniform as well as half a dozen Crime Scene Response Unit techs were busy examining and documenting the scene.

Jane reached for a styrofoam cup in the holder on the dashboard and took a sip of her still steaming coffee. _My highlight of the night,_ she gloomily thought to herself and gave the medical examiner a heavy-hearted smile. "Let's go."

The two women got out of the car and marched straight up to an opening in the bushes close to the road where most CSRU techs had already gathered. For a split second, Jane hesitated when she spotted the body from afar and all those nagging doubts crept back into her mind. _Save me. Save me._ Her face darkened._ I'm sorry. I failed._

"You okay?" Maura nudged the detective and studied her face while putting on a pair of blue nitrile gloves.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." Jane straightened up and decisively approached the body on the ground, hoping that the medical examiner would soon be distracted enough by her task at hand and not notice that Jane was anything but fine. _Just keep it together and let's get this over with!_

Three steps farther into the bushes, they reached Karen Newman's dead body in the wet grass, partly covered by the first fallen leaves of the season. The rain had smudged her mascara, and her blouse was now stained with a dark blend of her own blood and the dirt of her surroundings. Strands of her hair had gotten entangled with thin branches of wood, and her hands were still tied with those white zip cuffs. Her body had been carelessly thrown away like a bag of trash.

As Jane stood there and watched Maura kneel down to begin her preliminary examination, one of the cops at the scene stepped closer. Jane recognized him as Officer Bradbury, a greenhorn with potential whom she had met before at various other crime scenes. She nodded politely. "Who found her?"

Officer Bradbury wiped a few raindrops from his forehead. "Some guy living nearby. Was walking his dog when the mutt suddenly pulled away and wouldn't stop barking. He's already at the station giving his statement. We also found fresh tire tracks, possibly from the car of whoever dumped her here."

Jane looked around even though she couldn't see very far in the dark. The area was dominated by trees with only few houses scattered in between. As she let her eyes wander back towards the direction they had come from, Korsak and Frost joined them at the scene.

"Cozy little spot to get rid of a body, huh?" the older sergeant remarked and shook his head in disgust.

"Her body temperature is 90.3," Maura announced and removed the thermometer from the dead woman's liver. "Rigor has already set in. She's been dead for approximately three to four hours."

"So, there's no significant delay between her kidnapping and death and the e-mails we received," Frost deduced.

Jane nodded. "Yeah, and given the afternoon rush hour and the time it takes to get her out of the house, into a car, and then dump her without being seen — she must have been held within a radius of… what? Ten miles?"

"Maybe less," Korsak agreed. "But still a huge area…"

While the detectives discussed the killer's possible whereabout, Maura lifted up the dead woman's blouse and carefully examined the wound to her abdomen. The blood had dried for the most part, and the incision was neatly visible. "She bled out." She carefully pulled up the victim's skirt and checked her thighs and genital area for any signs of sexual abuse. "No exterior signs of rape," she continued.

"What about those bruises on her head?" Korsak asked as he was still curiously studying the body, whereas Frost had discreetly withdrawn to check out the surroundings.

The medical examiner carefully wiped a strand of hair off the woman's right temple and touched the swelling with her gloved hands. "Blunt force trauma…"

"They probably knocked her out when they kidnapped her," Jane guessed. "She's already had those bruises in the first photos."

A few moments later, Maura completed her preliminary examination and closed her bag. "I'll do the autopsy first thing in the morning," she promised, exhaustion from the long day with its unfortunate ending written all over her face.

Korsak suppressed a yawn. "Alright, we should all get some sleep. There's nothing we can do right now." He helped Maura up and went after Frost to inform him of the end of his duty for the day.

As two CSRU techs bagged the lifeless body of Karen Newman and wheeled her off, Jane, Maura, Frost, and Korsak gathered back together and returned to their cars. On their way, Frost checked his PDA. "I'll keep an eye on our mailboxes and check back with the lab about their tracing analysis. I'll let you know in case I hear anything new."

"Thanks, Frost," Jane said with a tired smile. "I'll see you in a few hours."

Frost and Korsak waved goodnight, got into their car, which was parked right behind Jane's sedan, and drove off into the night. Jane leaned against her own car and absentmindedly stared into the darkness.

"Jane?" Maura asked from the other side of the car.

The detective shrugged and gave the medical examiner a worried glance. "I don't think this is over. This is just the beginning," she said in a quiet, husky voice.

Maura simply nodded in silence. She wasn't one to guess, but throughout this awful day, she had seen enough to be able to conclude that Jane was right.


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: **So, how about we find us a new victim? I might be enjoying writing from the killer's perspective a tad too much though.. whoopsee.. :-)) Anyhoo, more Jane/Maura scenes coming up, too.. Has anybody had problems seeing all chapters, btw? Those site stats are a bit confusing but it looks as if Chapter 5 didn't show up for some.. lemme know if there's any prob. Now, back to business. Another chapter coming up later today._

* * *

In the very early hours of the next morning, the man stood in the pouring rain outside a 7-Eleven at the far end of Beacon Street in Newton and sipped on a lukewarm coffee. His brown jacket was soaked, and a steady succession of raindrops kept rolling down the side of his Red Sox baseball cap. With bloodshot eyes, he stared into the distance, his mind already fully focused on the second iteration of his plan. _This time, they will find her and save her. This time, it will work. _After another sip of his coffee, he carelessly threw the plastic cup away and trudged towards his silver sedan parked a few feet away on the small lot in front of the store. He snuffled, spat out a small lump of phlegm, and got into his car.

The man took off his cap and tossed it onto the passenger seat, where it landed between his laptop and a half-empty bag of Doritos. He turned the ignition key, pulled out of the parking lot, and merged with all the other poor souls who were either just returning home from a seemingly endless graveyard shift or who were already on their way back to work at this ungodly hour.

As he drove back eastwards, munching away on his snack and humming off-key to an old country song blaring from the radio, he felt the first wave of adrenaline tickle his veins in anticipation of his next move. And while his initial attempt on the day before had still frightened him, the thought of getting a second chance today brought a creepy smirk to his face.

Less than two miles and ten minutes later, he turned into a quiet residential neighborhood in Chestnut Hill — that area in the southwest of Boston that he had become so strangely familiar with over the past few months. He circled halfway round the Reservoir, passed by the Boston College alumni stadium, and then silently slid past the dark homes between Hammond Street and Suffolk Road.

Once he found the single-story wooden house he had been looking for, he parked on the roadside and turned off the lights. Almost simultaneously, a light came on in the kitchen of Brenda Williams. _You look so much like Darlene, _the man thought as he watched from outside how her silhouette kept bustling around behind the windows.

He reached for his laptop and turned it back on, making sure to keep the screen's backlight to a minimum in order not to be spotted in his car. He gulped down another handful of Doritos and studied the files filling the computer's screen. His next victim, who was still completely unaware of the man silently observing her through the kitchen windows, was as blonde and successful as Karen Newman and currently held a professorship of economics at Boston College. The man clicked her faculty profile away and opened a folder of photos showing Brenda Williams at various college events and activities — lectures, graduation ceremonies, charity races. _People are so credulous these days,_ he thought. _If they only knew that their whole lives are just a few mouse clicks away for everyone to see… at least if you know where to look._ And he sure did know.

The man held out for approximately twenty more minutes until the lights in the house were turned off and Brenda Williams stepped outside through the front door, dressed in black spandex pants and a red BC sweater. He observed with arched eyebrows how the blonde stretched and warmed up, plugged the headphones of an MP3 player into her ears, and then jogged away without paying any attention to his car opposite her house. He checked his watch. _7:30 a.m. Her first class today starts at 9 a.m. Perfect._

He shut down his laptop and opened the glove compartment to reveal another pair of white zip cuffs, a screwdriver and an utility knife, and his dark leather gloves. He put on the gloves and his baseball cap, then hid the cuffs and the tools in the inside pocket of his jacket.

As soon as he had assured himself that there wasn't another soul in sight, he got out of his car and darted towards Brenda Williams' house. Using the darkness of the still early morning as his ally, he snuck to the front door and fished the screwdriver out of his pocket. He had already brought it into position when he routinely turned the door knob and realized that it was unlocked. _Oh, Brenda. Always the optimist, aren't you?_ He quickly let himself in and closed the door. Once his eyes had adjusted to the dusky interior and the stylishly decorated living room with its white couch, a piano in the corner, and an exotic variety of orchids, he walked over to the kitchen and checked out the contents of Brenda Williams' fridge. Having lacked any interest in vegetables since his early childhood days, he opted for a chocolate bar and a small bottle of strawberry milk. He thought of the blonde woman. _A little reward for your early morning run, eh? Too bad you won't be able to enjoy it today._ He closed the fridge and ripped off a trash bag from a dispenser at the wall so he would be able to dispose of the bottle later and not leave any easy evidence behind.

For a while, he just stood there in the kitchen, taking small bites from the chocolate and washing them down with large swigs of the milk, while a clock on the wall audibly counted down the seconds until Brenda Williams' last moments in her own home. _Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock._

At 8 a.m. sharp, the man walked back into the living room, stuffed the remains of his snack into the trash bag, and hid the small bundle in his inside pocket. Without touching anything else, he became one with the dusky corner behind the front door, tightened his gloves and jacket, and then just stood there and waited.

A few minutes later, the sound of Brenda Williams' breathlessly humming one of Mozart's sonatas announced her arrival back at her house.

The man stiffened, took a deep breath, and waited for the front door to open. As soon as the blonde woman had entered and closed the door behind her, still humming and completely unaware of the man's presence, he jumped out of his corner and smashed his fist into her right temple, just like he had done with Karen Newman. And similar to his previous victim, Brenda Williams immediately slumped down and landed in the man's open arms.

Acquiring a certain routine already, he quickly tied up her hands with the zip cuffs and then peeked through the front door. The distance to his car was significantly longer this time, but the trees in the front yard and the seclusion of the whole area would certainly compensate for that. Nevertheless, he decided not to take any risks and to bring his car closer to the house instead. Once he had made sure the woman was fully knocked out, he dashed back to his sedan, hopped inside, and strategically positioned the vehicle as close to the front yard as possible, with the trunk facing the house. _Just in case…,_ he thought and remembered how Karen Newman had briefly come around on his passenger seat. This time, he would lock his victim in the trunk and avoid any complications right from the start.

Less than thirty seconds later, the man had carried the limp body of Brenda Williams out of the house, securely hidden her in the trunk of his sedan, and closed the front door to her home.

He got back into his car, whistling a tad too cheerfully, and drove off. _Today is the day. Today, it will work._

* * *

At a quarter past eight, the autopsy of Karen Newman was already fully underway in the morgue at Boston Police Headquarters. Dressed in her standard black scrubs, hands hidden in blue nitrile gloves, Maura stood bent over the autopsy table and examined the dead bank manager's fingernails when the doors swung open and Jane strolled in. Though the dark rings under the detective's eyes told a slightly different story, she exuded much more optimism compared to the previous night. Obviously, the two styrofoam cups of coffee in her hands had something to do with that. She took a long, delightful sip from one of the cups and placed the other on a small rack next to the autopsy table.

"Thank you," the medical examiner said as she glanced up. "Did you know that the concept of banking goes back all the way to 2000BC when Mesopotamian temples were used as a safe place to store grain and other goods? And then the owners would make deposits and withdrawals and use these goods just like we use money today…"

Jane arched her eyebrows in confusion. "So, next time you go shoe shopping online, you want to pay with… grain?"

Maura cocked her head and smiled. "Of course not. I just think it's interesting that people back then used to pay with something of actual value to them."

"Well, trust me, a lot of people today find a suitcase full of cash valuable enough to kill for," Jane remarked with a hint of gloom resonating in her voice again.

The detective's subtle melancholy didn't go unnoticed by Maura, and she halted her analysis of Karen Newman's fingernails for a moment. She took off one of her gloves, reached for the cup of coffee waiting for her on the rack, and expectantly looked at Jane across the autopsy table.

"What?" the brunette asked, even though she already knew the answer. Over the past few weeks, she had tried her best to hide her worries from her best friend, but she was very much aware that Maura would find out sooner or later. In fact, she was surprised at how long Maura had managed not to bring it up.

"You'll have to talk about it at some point, Jane," the medical examiner pointed out.

"Talk about what?" Jane tried to uphold her facade a little longer.

"About whatever has been bothering you over the past weeks," Maura explained with concern etched over her face.

Jane took another sip from her coffee and averted her eyes. Part of her wanted to open up and spill out all those dark thoughts the way that bowels would sometimes spill out of a dead body on Maura's autopsy table. But something else deep down inside held her back. She trusted Maura more than anybody else, and they knew each other inside out, but the thought of revealing her innermost fears, of appearing vulnerable and weak, was like an invisible wall holding her back. And so far, Jane didn't know how to tear it down.

"So, did she bleed out?" the detective asked instead and pointed at the dead woman on the table between them.

Maura sighed, knowing quite well that it would be pointless to push any further right now. Hoping that solving the case at hand would help lift Jane's mood, she focused back on the victim. "Yes, she did. She also has various perimortem bruises on her neck, wrists, and arms." The medical examiner showed Jane the dark discolorations on the skin where the man had grabbed and strangled his victim. "And the bruising on her temple left her with a mild concussion. But ultimately, she bled out from this three-inch incision," Maura confirmed and traced the dry wound to the dead woman's abdomen with her fingers. "It has been caused by a sharp but rusty tool. I found iron-oxide and iron-oxide-hydroxide particles in the wound."

"And she hasn't been raped?" Jane asked, while her mind was already putting together the pieces and vividly reconstructing Karen Newman's death.

"No."

"So, he probably knocked her out and—"

"How do you know it's a 'he'?" Maura interrupted her.

"I just talked to Frost. They found foot prints at the crime scene. Shoe size 11, heavy boots… And they only found one set of prints, so he's apparently working alone," the detective explained and stared at the body in front of her. "So, he knocks her out on the parking lot, brings her to his hiding place, has a fight with her… And eventually, he makes that incision and lets her bleed to death while having the presence of mind to take a few memorable snapshots for us so we can all join in on the fun," Jane grunted.

Maura bit her lip and nodded, then held up the dead woman's left hand. "I also found tiny strands of cotton as well as a splint of wood under her fingernails."

"Probably from the wooden floor we saw in the photos and from his clothes," Jane mused.

"Maybe, but I doubt we'll get anything meaningful from that. There's nothing unique about these cotton fibers," Maura admitted. "Did you find anything in her car?"

Jane shook her head. "No. And it was still locked, so the killer probably never even touched it. Must have gotten to her on her way back from the store before she had a chance to unlock her car." She took one last sip from her coffee, then tossed the empty cup towards a trash bin next to the table. She missed it. "Of course," Jane commented wryly but didn't bother picking up the cup from the floor.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Maura inquired while resisting the urge to pick up the cup.

Before Jane could answer, her phone beeped. She checked the text message on its display and frowned, then gave the medical examiner a frustrated I-told-you-so look. "Great. Our killer wants to play again."


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N:** Thanks for still following along! I've never had more than half a dozen peeps read my stuff, so that's kinda cool. :-) Will be uploading another chapter in a few minutes because this one here's only investigation stuff (yeah, I know, boring.. but part of the show). Hope that's not considered spamming (I have no idea if there's something like fanfic etiquette), so just make sure you read them in the right order._

* * *

A few minutes later, Jane stepped out of the elevator and into the homicide squad room. Since Frost and Korsak weren't at their desks, she marched straight to the BRIC, where she found the two detectives behind one of the computers. They both greeted her with a look that revealed much more than Jane was ready to deal with today. Obviously, the situation was critical.

Jane stepped closer and peeked at the new e-mail on the screen in front of the two men. "So, the whole thing starts anew, huh?"

"Apparently, yes," Frost confirmed and opened the e-mail's attachment. Everything looked eerily similar to the photos from the day before. Three pictures showing the bruised and battered body of a blonde woman filled the screen, her hands tied with white zip cuffs and the lower part of her runner's shirt soaked in blood from an apparent wound to her abdomen. "He got another woman, but everything else is still the same. Anonymized e-mail, no traceable data, and the same caption," Frost explained and pointed at the large letters written beneath the photos: _SAVE ME._

Jane scowled at the sight of the familiar plea. _Save me. Save me. _And with those two words, all her doubts and worries from the day before washed over her again. _I want to save you, but I don't know how. You have to help me so I can help you. Tell me how to save you._

Suddenly, Korsak bent forward to take a closer look at something on the floor next to the blonde woman. "Can you enlarge this part?"

"Sure," Frost said and immediately scaled the image detail to an appropriate size. "What is it?"

The gray-haired sergeant pointed at a piece of clothing next to the woman, partly hidden by her legs. "See that? Looks like a sweatshirt with a logo on it."

"Yes!" Jane exclaimed and a touch of hope flashed over her face. "That's the color and logo of Boston College. She looks like she's in her thirties… probably too old for a student. Maybe she works there?"

Korsak shrugged. "Could be. It's the only shot we have right now. Let's check."

Frost quickly pulled up the relevant Boston College contact information and reached for the phone on his desk. "I'll call them and have them send us their staff directory. Maybe she's listed in there."

Jane nodded, and while her partner made the necessary phone calls, she focused her eyes on the woman in the photos again, as if the images would somehow reveal more valuable information if she only stared at them long enough. Korsak noticed her tense posture and worriedly studied her face. "Jane, are you alright?"

"Yeah," she said and almost convinced herself. "Why does everybody keep asking me that?"

"Maybe because you look like you haven't slept in months?" Korsak whispered with fatherly concern. "We've had some really tough cases lately. Everybody would understand if you wanted to take a few days off."

Jane resolutely shook her head and pointed at the photos of the bleeding blonde on the screen in front of her. "No, _she_ wouldn't." Noticing the uncertainty in Korsak's face, she gave him an appeasing smile. "I'm fine. Really. And I will be even better once we've found this woman. So, let's focus on her, alright?"

"Okay," her former partner agreed. Several years of working with Jane had taught him that there was no point in arguing with her once she had set her mind on something. "Let's find out who she is."

They both turned towards Frost as he hung up the phone and then once again let his fingers fly over his keyboard to bring up a multi-page Boston College staff listing. "This one includes all regular faculty members of most departments. It's missing a few visiting professors and those who have joined only recently, but let's start with what we have right now." With a few additional key strokes, Frost sent the listing to the two computer screens next to his own.

Jane sat down in one of the chairs and glanced at the file's contents. "How about you check Arts and Sciences…?" she suggested to Frost, then turned to Korsak next to her. "You take the School of Education, and I take the School of Management and whatever else there is?"

The two men nodded and they all began to browse through various profiles of faculty members, hoping they'd find the one that would reveal the identity of the blonde woman waiting to be saved.

Twenty minutes later, Jane had almost given up hope but then suddenly froze at the sight of a profile from the Chair of Economics. "I think I got her!"

Frost and Korsak looked up and read the information on Jane's screen. And indeed, the woman smiling into the camera in the faculty profile of Brenda Williams bore a striking resemblance to the kidnapped blonde woman in the photos attached to the anonymous e-mail BPD had received this morning.

For a moment, Jane forgot everything around her and thoroughly studied Brenda Williams' profile. The professor appeared friendly and encouraging, and Jane wondered what her classes were like. Given her parents' lack of financial resources, Jane hadn't gotten the chance to attend an expensive institution like Boston College herself, and every now and then, a regretful voice would haunt her and remind her of everything she had probably missed out on. _Damn it. Just focus! This is not the time for regrets._ Jane took a deep breath and got up. "Alright, let's go and find her!"

Right before the three detectives left the BRIC, Jane caught one last glimpse of Brenda Williams' photos on the screen and her eyes filled with worry. _I'll save you. I promise._

* * *

A few minutes past 10 a.m., Jane and Korsak arrived at Brenda Williams' house in Chestnut Hill in Jane's unmarked sedan, closely followed by a patrol car and a CSRU van. Korsak and the other police officers and techs immediately got out of their cars and examined the surroundings. Jane followed closely behind while still talking into her phone and absentmindedly glancing around.

As Korsak stepped onto the house's front porch, Jane ended her call and caught up with the older sergeant. "Frost talked to one of the office assistants at BC's Economics Department," she filled him in. "Brenda Williams didn't show up to her class this morning and they haven't reached her yet."

Korsak nodded, his face lacking his usual shrewd smirk. Over the span of his long career, he had already dealt with the Boston Irish mob, with rapists and murderers, and even with psychopaths like Charles Hoyt. But never before had a killer teased him with photos of his next victims, taunted him with their agony and desperate hope to be saved in time. This was something new. And Korsak didn't like it at all.

"Watch out," Jane pulled him from his thoughts. "We might have another set of footprints here," she said and pointed at a dried set of prints on the wooden porch. She carefully tiptoed around the prints and rang the doorbell, then knocked at the door. There was no answer.

"Let's go in," Korsak said and put on a pair of nitrile gloves.

"Yeah, no point in dragging this out longer than necessary," Jane agreed and slid her hands into a pair of gloves as well. Just to be sure, she signaled their presence with another loud knock on the front door. "Police!" she shouted, then turned the knob and furrowed as the door swung open. Korsak waved towards the CSRU techs before following Jane into the house.

Without touching anything, the two detectives looked around. The white couch, the piano in the corner, the orchids — everything looked neat and tidy.

"The assistant at BC told Frost that Williams usually does a 5-mile run in the early morning before class. Maybe she got kidnapped somewhere along the way?" Jane peeked into the adjacent rooms, which were as quiet and clean as the living room.

"Hold on, I got something," Korsak cut her off and crouched down to reach for a small object in a corner next to the front door. With an annoyed groan, he heaved himself back up, turned around and presented Jane with Brenda Williams' MP3 player.

The brunette stepped closer and examined the device. "Hmm…" With well-trained eyes, she studied the entrance area, then gently pushed her former partner aside so he wouldn't block the light coming in through the front door. As soon as the few glimpses of sunshine that had broken through the morning clouds lit up the floor, more dried footprints became visible. Jane knelt down and signaled the CSRU techs to focus on this part of the house.

"Looks like our killer got to her in her own home," she said to Korsak, who was just about to stick his head outside through the front door to check the distance to the neighbors.

"Yeah. And he couldn't have picked a better place," the sergeant agreed. "Fence and trees hide him from view… secluded area… not really the ideal place to live for a single woman."

Jane got up and stepped outside. "Well, let's talk to the neighbors anyway." She pointed towards the property to the left of Brenda Williams' house. "You take the one over there, I'll take the other one over here." Without waiting for Korsak's answer, Jane marched over to the estate to her right.

When she had passed the trees and bushes and turned towards the neighbors' porch, the weather-worn front door opened and an elderly lady stepped outside, barely able to contain her curiosity regarding the police presence in front of the house next door.

"Hello, I'm Detective Rizzoli, Boston Police," Jane introduced herself. "I'd like to talk to you about your neigh—"

"Oh, no! I knew it," the elderly woman exclaimed and almost tripped over her slippers as she scuffled towards the picket fence separating the two properties. "What happened to her?"

Slightly confused, Jane followed her and tried to win back her attention. "What do you mean, you 'knew it'?"

The agitated old lady warningly waved her finger in Jane's face. "I always told her to be more careful, but she wouldn't listen to me. I told her to find herself a decent husband so she wouldn't be all by herself all the time." She shook her head and sighed. "A woman shouldn't live alone in a house like this. Are you married?"

The sudden change of subject caught Jane by surprise. "I… uh…"

"I hope you're not one of those career-driven women who forget about their domestic duties," the lady ranted on.

"Domestic dut—," Jane gasped but then took a deep breath and regained her composure. "Listen, your neighbor is missing, and I need to know if you have noticed anything suspicious around her house between last night and this morning."

The elderly woman shook her head and peeked over the fence again. Clearly, the flurry of activity next door was the highlight of her week.

"Maybe a car that you've never seen around here?" Jane tried again to get some information out of the distracted senior. "Some stranger sneaking around?"

"No," the woman declared while observing the CSRU techs photographing the house next door. "Do you think I have nothing else to do than to sit around the house and watch the neighborhood?"

Jane arched her eyebrows and had trouble not to snort. "I'm just trying to—"

"So, tell me, what happened to her?" The elderly lady stepped closer and expectantly looked at Jane.

Instinctively, the detective rose her hands in an attempt to fend off the intruder in her personal space. "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to talk to you about—"

A croaky voice from the house interrupted her. "Agnes? What's going on?!" The male equivalent of the old lady hobbled outside and curiously stared at the scene next door.

"I told you to stay inside!" the woman yelled and then cursed under her breath as she scuffled back towards her house. Suddenly, she seemed to remember that the detective was still standing on her front lawn. She briefly turned back around. "Excuse me. He has just had the flu and really should be staying in bed."

As the old lady made her way back to the porch and then dragged her husband inside with her, Jane watched in amusement and shook her head. "Domestic duties my ass."

She hurried back to Brenda Williams' house, where Korsak was already awaiting her. "Nobody home next door," he informed her. "Mailbox is brimful… Looks like they're on vacation. Got anything in the house over there?" he asked and nodded towards the elderly couple's house.

Jane rolled her eyes. "Other than a prewar fossil of a woman who lectured me on my domestic duties? No." As Korsak frowned in confusion, the brunette smirked. "Don't ask," she added and marched towards her sedan. Even though they had identified the second victim, they still didn't have any clue regarding her whereabouts. _I will find her. I will find her,_ Jane repeated to herself as she got back into her car.


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N:** Alright, here's the other chapter I mentioned. So, in case you got several notifications, it wasn't a glitch and you might have missed Chapter 8. I'll leave you for today with a little foreshadowing at the end of this one. And did I mention that reviews make me happy? *wink wink, nudge nudge* :-)_

* * *

An hour later, Jane and Korsak had once again sat down behind two computers in the BRIC at Boston Police Headquarters. The brunette was intently staring at the different photos they had received from the mysterious killer, while the older sergeant was browsing through stills from public surveillance cameras near the locations where the two women had been seen last.

"It's really a one-in-a-million shot, Jane," Korsak sighed. "He could've taken various different routes, and we don't even know how long he had been following the first victim."

"I know, I know," Jane conceded. "But we don't have much else right now. Just keep looking… Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky for once." She focused her attention back on the photos on her screen. "Could be a coincidence, but he's got a thing for blonde women… Maybe they remind him of someone… his girlfriend or wife…," Jane thought aloud.

"Or his mother…," Korsak interjected. "We don't know yet how old or how young our killer is."

"I don't think this is about his mother," Jane objected. "Neither of our two victims has any kids. And the killer seems to be familiar with their lives, so he'd certainly know this, too."

"True," the sergeant nodded, then thought of something else. "Hey, both of these women have a background in finance. One is a bank manager, the other teaches economics. Maybe that's our connection?"

"Yeah, could be," the brunette agreed. "We'll have to wait for Frost. Maybe he's—"

Right on cue, the glass door to the BRIC swung open and Detective Frost marched in, cup of coffee in one hand, pen and notebook in the other. He plopped down into a chair next to his two colleagues and glanced through his notes. "Alright, I got Brenda Williams' schedule and talked to her assistant and one of the TAs from her class this morning." The young detective shrugged and gave Jane a disappointed look. "No one noticed anything suspicious. Professor Williams was dedicated to her work… Her students and colleagues liked her… And except for today, she hasn't missed any classes and always stuck to her schedule."

"That's probably what made her a target for our killer," Jane mused. "Predictable and always on time — no wonder he knew exactly when and where to attack her this morning."

Korsak looked up from his surveillance camera footage. "Did you find any connection between the two women?"

Frost shook his head. "Not yet, but I'm gonna talk to a colleague and close friend of Karen Newman to find out what she did and where she was over the past few days." He took a sip from his coffee and got up again. When Jane was about to follow him, he stopped her with a friendly wave of his hand. "No, it's alright. I got this. Stay here in case our killer sends another e-mail."

The brunette squinted at her partner. "I don't need to stay here to be able to read my e-mails."

"No, but you could grab a bite to eat in the meantime. I've already had something on my way back." Frost held up his cup of coffee and attempted to sound completely casual and unconcerned. It didn't work.

Jane's detective senses got all tingly and she curiously eyed the two men. "Okay, this has got to stop! I'm fine… A little tired maybe, but I don't need you two go all helicopter dad on me."

Frost gave Korsak the annoyed look of someone who had involuntarily become a partner in crime. "See! I told you!"

"So, this was your idea?" Jane glared at Korsak, who instantly shrunk by two sizes and discreetly turned back to his screen. The brunette feigned her indignation a little longer and barely managed to hold back an amused smile. She knew that the two men truly cared and only had her best interest in mind. And even though she normally wouldn't admit to it, their concern actually made her feel a little better.

"Well, I'm off," Frost politely excused himself and headed towards the door. The very same moment, Maura arrived and the two of them exchanged a friendly nod when Frost held the door open for the medical examiner before disappearing towards the elevators.

"As expected, the autopsy didn't reveal anything," Maura announced and sat down next to Jane. "The fibers I found under her fingernails are from an ordinary cotton blend."

"That's it?" Jane arched her eyebrows. "Come on, you once found out the location of a house based on particles of paint, but you can't tell me where our killer goes clothes shopping?"

"Well, actually I could. There are 43 species of cotton, and I could tell you exactly which ones went into this blend, but given that one can produce approximately 1,200 t-shirts from a standard cotton bale and that this rather ordinary blend is sold at a range of low-quality outlets, this wouldn't help you find your killer."

Jane grimaced and leaned back. "No, it wouldn't." Faced with the disappointing lack of any helpful clues, her thoughts drifted back to her ridiculous encounter with the elderly couple in the morning, and an amused grin spread over her face. "But guess what?"

"What?" the medical examiner asked, pleased to see the detective smile for a change.

"Apparently, it's time we got married," Jane chuckled.

Caught off-guard by the ambiguity of the statement, Maura experienced a rare case of speechlessness and stared at Jane in wide-eyed confusion.

"I had to interview this old lady living next door to our second victim's house," the detective explained, "and she suggested women like us should focus less on our jobs and more on our _domestic duties_."

"Uh oh," Maura's face lightened up at the thought of Jane being lectured about anything domestic. "Did you arrest her?"

The brunette laughed. "I probably should have."

"Well, actually, a recent study implies that marriage increases life satisfaction more than money, sex, or even children," Maura pondered.

When Korsak wheeled around in his chair and cocked his head in disbelief, Jane smirked at the three-time divorcee. "Is there anything you'd like to add to that, Sergeant Korsak?"

Her former partner shrugged and pulled an awkward face. "Apparently, none of my wives have read that study. Did it say anything about the satisfaction derived from divorce?"

Maura shook her head. "No, but if it's any consolation, divorce rates in this country are 41% for a first marriage, 60% for a second marriage, and 73% for a third marriage."

"Yeah, and 100% if you're married to Korsak," Jane quipped.

"Ha ha." The sergeant rolled his eyes in playful irritation and focused his attention back on the surveillance material on his screen.

For a moment, Jane and Maura silently chuckled but eventually, the gruesome pictures on Jane's screen pulled them back towards their harsh task at hand. The detective paused and rubbed her nose, then decisively reached for her keyboard and opened her e-mail client. "Alright, let's send him another e-mail. We have to get him to talk and let his guard down."

Korsak glanced over his shoulder. "Want to provoke him? Find out his weakness?"

Jane shrugged. "Yeah, at least we have to try. Brenda Williams is already bleeding to death, so we can't make matters worse, can we?" She questioningly looked at Maura and Korsak for support. When the two of them nodded, their faces showing the same concern and helplessness as hers, she began to type.

* * *

Around noon, the man was pacing back and forth in the still dusky living room of his house and repeatedly glanced towards the exhausted blonde trapped in the corner a few feet away. After he had abducted Brenda Williams from her own home, hidden her in the trunk of his car, and driven back to his house, he had followed the same ritual as with Karen Newman on the day before. Except this time, he hadn't felt any hesitation or doubt. He had carried the woman inside, had placed her in the same corner as his previous victim, and had subsequently taken off her sweater and made a careful incision in the lower right of her abdomen. She had been unconscious most of the time, which had simplified his task even further, but a few minutes ago, Brenda Williams had slowly come around. Terror had spread over her face as soon as she had realized her current predicament, and similar to the woman from the day before, her first instinct was to fight and to escape her pending fate. In vain. The man had brutally pushed her back into her corner and made clear that he would not tolerate any of her attempts to thwart his plan.

But while there was no doubt about her physical inferiority, the blonde woman's will hadn't been broken yet, and with a burning desire to survive, Brenda Williams ignored the pain in her belly and carefully followed the man's each and every move, hoping for a chance to engage him, to distract him, to defeat him.

"What do you want?" she whispered, trying to gauge his reaction. "What do you want from me?"

The man ignored her and instead attempted to focus on his plan again. _They should know her identity by now. What are they waiting for? Why aren't they trying to save her? _

"Do… do I know you?" The blonde interrupted his thoughts. "Is this about something I have done? Have I—"

"Shut up!" he growled and sat down at the wooden table, his face illuminated by a new flickering candle. He booted his laptop and reached for a half-empty bottle of beer standing next to the computer. He almost choked when he noticed the unread e-mail from Boston Police on his screen. _Finally! _A rush of adrenaline shot through his body in anticipation of the next round of his game.

"I… I have money, if that's what you're after," the woman in the corner carefully tried again, but the man just took a deep breath and kept staring at the screen in front of him. "I promise I will help you, but you have to tell me what you want."

_Just shut up! Shut up! That's all I want!_ The woman's incessant need to talk made the blood boil in the man's veins and he felt overcome by a sudden urge to make her stop. He jumped up and kicked back his chair, took three furious steps towards his captive, and built himself up in front of her.

"I want you to keep your mouth shut, you understand?!" he declared in a deep, threatening voice.

Though visibly shaken by the man's outburst, Brenda Williams wasn't ready to give in. The pain in her abdomen and the subtle numbness slowly consuming her body were unambiguous reminders that her life was hanging by a thread. "Please, just tell me how I can help you."

The man's nostrils trembled as he tried to resist the overwhelming desire to silence the blonde. He glared at her from his bloodshot eyes and studied her features, her pleading face. But when she opened her mouth again to talk to him, he couldn't control his fury any longer and clutched her throat with his still gloved hand. He pulled her close, his alcoholic breath filling her face. "I swear you'll never speak again if you don't stop right now. I don't need you to be able to talk for this!"

"For… what?" the blonde whispered while trying to hold back her tears. If she had known that those would be her last words ever spoken, she might have chosen different ones. But it was too late. Enraged by her disobedience, the man threw her weak body against the wall, thereby breaking not only two of her ribs but also her will. With a quiet moan, the woman collapsed and finally gave in to the pain and the tears.

And as she lay curled up in a ball on the floor, her shirt soaked in her own blood and tears, the man straightened up, shook off his rage, and reached for his camera. Calm and completely untouched by the woman's turmoil, he focused and took several pictures just before she closed her eyes and passed out.

_You should have just shut up,_ he thought as he stared at his victim lying at his feet. _It would've been so much easier. For both of us. But now? You're ruining everything… just like the other one did last night!_ He shook his head, then walked back to the table, picked up his overthrown chair, and sat down again. _They'd better find you in time or everything will have been in vain. Again._

As soon as he reactivated his laptop, he suddenly remembered the e-mail from BPD that he had begun to read right before the woman's unpleasant questions had forced him to interrupt his task. He brought his e-mail client back to the screen and read the message again, this time without any interference from the motionless blonde in the corner.

_Your little game is getting boring, _the e-mail stated. _If you want us to play, you'll have to make your next move. Why do you want these women to be saved? What have they done to you? It's time to let us know who you are and what you want._

The man frowned and let the words sink in. _Boring? Next move? _He clearly hadn't anticipated such a dismissive response. And they hadn't even said anything about the women's identities. _Did they know the names of the two women? Had they even begun to investigate the matter further? _

He squinted in anger and scrolled down to reveal the rest of the message.

_You can contact me directly,_ it said at the bottom of the e-mail, followed by the signature of a Detective Jane Rizzoli.

He opened his browser and ran a quick Web search on the name, just like he would do with everybody he met or talked to or read about somewhere. Nowadays, the Internet often revealed more about people than they would freely reveal themselves, be it on a first date or at the office's water cooler or in an e-mail exchange like this between a cop and a killer.

With much interest, the man browsed through the results of his search query — an article about the detective receiving a medal for having shot herself during a siege at BPD, another article about her being a rising star in the homicide unit, and finally a photo report about her close friendship with the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and their involvement in Paddy Doyle's RICO trial. Apparently, they did take him seriously. Why else would they assign one of their best detectives to this case? A confident smirk flashed over the man's face as he regained hope that his plan would work and that he could finally make things right.

He plugged in his camera and transferred the new pictures of Brenda Williams to his laptop. _You want my next move, Detective Rizzoli? You can have it. Let's hope you're as good as they say!_


	10. Chapter 10

_**A/N:** I had slightly more fun writing this one than those investigation scenes.. hm, I wonder why.. Well, I hope reading it will also be a bit fun. And if you actually paid attention and understand the killer's message, you'll get a special price. Oh, and sorrynotsorry to the somewhat popular photographer whom I based a character in this chapter on. I couldn't resist. Bonus points to you if you actually recognize his name despite the spelling variation. :-)_

* * *

In the early afternoon, while Korsak was still in the BRIC browsing through the surveillance material and Frost was out and about interviewing friends and colleagues of the killer's first victim, Jane had sat down at her desk in the homicide squad's bullpen again. She was burying her head in her hands and repeatedly squinting through her fingers at her computer screen. Maura had once told her that a literal change of perspective would very often result in a figurative change as well, and given the lack of other options or fresh ideas, Jane had decided to give it a try. After all, the medical examiner's random bits of wisdom had proved to be right more often than not, even though Jane would hesitate to admit it. Unfortunately, her current attempt to follow Maura's advice and refresh her mind with a game of peek-a-boo resulted in nothing but amused looks from the other detectives nearby. The e-mail on her screen, however, still didn't make much sense. With an annoyed groan, Jane leaned back and stared at the killer's new message.

The e-mail included another two photos of Brenda Williams crouched in that dark corner, her blood trickling from her body to the floor, her skin several degrees paler than before. And the photos' brief but poignant caption was exactly the same as in the second set of photos of Karen Newman: _TICK-TOCK._ Below, the killer had added another teaser: _A PERFECT PICTURE, DON'T YOU THINK? YOU'D BETTER HURRY UP, DETECTIVE RIZZOLI._

Even though Jane had intentionally signed her previous e-mail to the killer with her name, hoping to establish a personal connection and to gain his trust, she still felt shivers crawl up her spine when she read his message addressed directly to her. Not only did the killer now know who she was, but reading her name attached to the gruesome images of Brenda Williams also re-enforced her lingering fear of failure and her belief that she herself would be responsible for the woman's death if she didn't save her in time. _She's counting on me. I can't let her down. I have to find Brenda Williams before it's too late._

Frustrated by having to deal with all those scattered clues instead of being able to look the killer in the eyes and fight him face-to-face, Jane got up and stretched her tired bones before heading to the white board behind Frost's desk. It was filled with all the photos they had received, with brief profiles of Karen Newman and Brenda Williams, and with a map of Chestnut Hill and its surrounding districts. Two red pins marked the locations where the two women had been kidnapped, two green ones marked their respective homes, and a black one near the Neponset River Reservation served as a sad reminder of the scene where Karen Newman's body had been found. Printouts of the killer's e-mails were stapled together and clipped to the board. A handwritten table beneath them listed all the arrival times of the individual messages.

Jane reached for a pen and stared at the assortment of clues in front of her. She was about to draw a circle defining the possible radius within which the killer might be hiding, but when she realized that the lack of data made any reliable estimation impossible, she let her arm sink down, heaved a sigh, and scratched her head. _I bet Maura would know what to do. She always knows everything. How the hell does she do that? Maybe she is a cyborg after all…_ Jane grinned at the memory of their conversation from a few years ago when Charles Hoyt had escaped from prison and made her seek refuge at Maura's house.

"Can I help?" The voice of the medical examiner pulled her out of her thoughts, and Jane spun around to face Maura.

"Did you just read my mind?" the detective asked and felt her cheeks blush.

"I would have to dissect your brain in order to do that," Maura stated a tad too factually but then let the thought linger a little longer. "I wonder what your prefrontal lobe looks like. Research suggests that it's associated with the ability to understand sarcasm, so I would expect yours to be slightly enlarged."

Jane raised her eyebrow. "Thank you for the insightful analysis, Dr. Isles."

"See? That's your prefrontal lobe talking right there," Maura said with a wink and a smile. "Nonetheless, I'd be willing to join you for a late lunch. You really need to take a break, Jane."

The detective walked back to her desk, plopped down, and shook her head. "I can't. We've just received another message, and time's running out, Maura."

Seeing the desperation in Jane's eyes, Maura sat down next to her and looked at the message on the computer screen. "A perfect picture?" she read aloud and frowned.

"Yeah, tell me what it means and I'll join you for lunch," Jane sighed.

Maura reached for Jane's mouse and enlarged one of the attached photos of Brenda Williams' tired frame huddled in a dark corner in a house probably not very far away. "Well, if the killer is trying to reference da Vinci's _Vitruvian Man_, which is considered a picture of a perfectly proportioned human body, I'm afraid he's got it all wrong," Maura explained but then noticed the detective's blank stare. "You know, that drawing of a naked man with his arms spread out and—"

"I know, Maura, but that's not it," Jane stopped the medical examiner's attempts to imitate da Vinci's famous illustration. "I don't think our killer is sending us on a scavenger hunt ripped out of some Dan Brown novel."

They both studied the photos of Brenda Williams again, hoping for another insight that would help them find the kidnapped woman. But given the lack of information, Jane's thoughts eventually drifted off and she re-considered Maura's invitation for a late lunch. Maybe this would finally help her clear her mind and look at this case from a fresh perspective. She sheepishly glanced at the medical examiner. "Where did you want to go for lunch?"

A delighted smile lit up the blonde's face. "There's this new Mexican restaurant I've been meaning to try for a while. They're said to serve the best _chiles en nogada_ in town."

"Do I want to know what that is?" Jane asked with the expression of a child faced with a plate full of spinach.

"It's basically chili peppers filled with meat and topped with a walnut-based cream and pomegranate seeds," Maura explained and stood up. "I'm sure you'll like it."

"That's what you said about that quinoa stuff, too," Jane teased.

"Yes, and you have been eating it ever since, haven't you?"

Jane smiled for an answer. Indeed, she had been eating those pseudocereals for a while now, but not because she particularly liked them. She only liked the way the medical examiner's eyes would sparkle when Jane actually heeded Maura's rather unique culinary advice. And given how often Maura put up with Jane's sarcasm and morning grumpiness, it was the least she could do in return. "Fine, let's go," Jane gave in and followed the blonde towards the hallway. "But I'll have fries with that!"

Just when they passed Lieutenant Cavanaugh's office, a woman's aroused giggling was heard through the door and prompted them to freeze in their tracks.

The medical examiner frowned. "Was that—"

"My mother? Yes," Jane finished Maura's thought.

Inconspicuously, the two women approached the door and leaned in as close as possible without attracting any unnecessary attention.

"Geez, why can't she make out with the milk man like any other woman in her mid-50s?" Jane groaned.

"Because the introduction of refrigerators in private homes has made the need for milk men obsolete and too expensive," Maura explained. "Although recent years have seen a resurgence of the concept because of the shift to locally sourced food… Do you want me to hire a milk man for your mother?" she asked with a smirk.

"Yes, please," Jane begged with a strong dose of sarcasm filling her voice as another round of laughter from her mother was heard through the door. When a patrol officer walked by the lieutenant's office and curiously eyed the two women glued to the door, Jane casually turned around and smiled him off.

"Okay, enough of this," she whispered to Maura, then straightened up and briskly knocked at the door.

"Wait! What if they—" Maura tried to stop her, but Jane had already opened the door without waiting for permission to enter. Maura barely managed not to stumble into the office behind Jane and instead glanced over the brunette's shoulder to find Angela Rizzoli and Lieutenant Sean Cavanaugh standing a tad too close near his desk.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were… busy," Jane excused her sudden entrance and secretly enjoyed the embarrassment spreading over both the lieutenant's and her mother's face.

The older Rizzoli woman innocently withdrew from the desk. "I was just dropping off the lieutenant's lunch."

"Of course," Jane smirked at her mother and then turned to her boss. "I… uh, just wanted to let you know that we'll be heading out to interview a few more people about that murder case we're working on… You probably haven't had the time yet to look into this…," she said with not so subtle subtlety.

"Yes, the case with the abducted women…," Cavanaugh interjected while trying to hold Jane's piercing stare. With limited success. "Do we know how to stop this guy?"

Jane shook her head. "Not yet, but we're working on it."

Seizing her chance, Angela casually snuck past Jane and shyly smiled at Maura before disappearing through the door.

The lieutenant absentmindedly watched his love interest leave, oblivious to Jane's annoyed eye-rolling at his behavior. "Well, you keep working the case, Rizzoli. Could you close the door behind you, please?"

Jane cleared her throat and waited for the lieutenant to look up before pointing at the rather prominent lipstick print on his collar. "You might want to get rid of that, sir…"

Without waiting for an answer from her blushing boss, Jane turned around, exchanged a silent chuckle with Maura, and closed the door behind them. When she spotted Angela waiting for the elevator, she sprinted towards her mother, determined not to let her get away.

"For God's sake, Ma," Jane complained. "Isn't it enough that you're… doing whatever it is you're doing with my boss every night? Now, you have to do it at work, too?!"

"I just brought him his lunch. He's a busy man, Jane…," the Rizzoli matriarch defended herself and glanced towards Maura for support.

"Oh, I see," Jane gnarled. "And do you serve your other customers the Rizzoli Lipstick Special, too?"

Before Angela could protest, Jane's phone rang and she unambiguously shushed her mother. "Hey, Frost," she said into her phone and turned away to focus on the call. "Tell me you've got something."

While Jane was intently listening to her partner bringing her up to speed, the elevator finally arrived and Angela seized her chance to escape. She quickly slipped inside and silently begged Maura to remain quiet. The medical examiner gave her an understanding smile and let her get away.

A few seconds later, Jane hung up and turned to the elevator where her mother had been standing just a moment ago. Hoping to give Angela a sufficient head start, Maura quickly distracted her best friend. "Anything new from Detective Frost?"

"Yes, actually," Jane said, her face brightening up with a shimmer of hope that they could maybe catch the killer in time and save Brenda Williams. "Both our victims took part in a photo walk just a few days ago. Maybe that's how they knew each other, and maybe someone laid eyes on them there." She pressed the elevator's down button and nervously tapped her foot. "I'm gonna meet Frost at the office of one of the organizers… uh, which means we'll have to cancel lunch." She sheepishly grinned at Maura.

The medical examiner rolled her eyes, knowing from past experiences that it would probably take half a dozen attempts to finally get Jane to join her at that Mexican restaurant. "Okay, but I'm coming with you. We can stop for some food on our way, and I might be able to help you. I know a thing or two about photography."

"Of course, you do," Jane said and didn't even bother to talk Maura out of it. When the elevator finally arrived, they stepped inside and smiled.

* * *

Half an hour later, Jane and Maura got out of the detective's sedan and walked towards a trendy complex of apartments and offices on the site of a former factory building in East Boston. Detective Frost was already waiting outside and signaled them to follow him towards one of the entrances leading to Kelley's Photography Studio.

As the three of them entered the spacious ground-floor office, they were greeted by a tall, middle-aged man wearing casual jeans and a wide shirt that didn't really help his slightly overweight appearance. "Hi, I'm Scott Kelley. I believe we've just spoken on the phone?"

"Yes," Jane nodded as they shook hands. "I'm Detective Rizzoli, and these are my colleagues Detective Frost and Dr. Isles." She briefly let her eyes wander around to admire the large, light-filled studio with its floor-to-ceiling windows on one side and a wall adorned with numerous framed photos on the other. "Business is going well, huh?"

"Can't complain," Kelley said with a smirk and led them towards a desk and some chairs in the middle of the office. "So, how can I help you?"

While Jane and Frost sat down, Maura strolled towards the wall to study some of the photos, which earned her repeated glances from Kelley and brought a proud smile to his face.

Frost subtly cleared his throat and revealed two pictures of Karen Newman and Brenda Williams. "These two women participated in your photo walk last week. Do you recognize them?"

Kelley shook his head. "Nah, but we had hundreds of participants. The event consisted of several individual walks, and I only led one of them. Maybe they joined one of the other meet-ups."

"Do you have a list of all participants?" Jane asked. "Or of the other guides?"

"We do have a website where people can register for our walks, but it's not mandatory," the studio owner explained. "A lot of people decide to join at the very last minute. Did something happen to these two women?"

Jane nodded and tried to conceal her frustration about this latest dead end. "Unfortunately, yes. And so far, the only connection between them is your photo walk."

Kelley heaved a sigh. "Are they… are they dead?"

"At least one of them is," Frost confirmed.

"Man, that is… not good," the photographer leaned back and searched for the right words. "So, you're saying someone at our event is… is a killer?"

Jane shrugged. "That's what we're trying to find out."

"Well, I can print you a list of the other official guides," Kelley said and turned to his computer. "And I'll send you the names of all registered participants. I wish I could help you more…"

"It's better than nothing," Jane said and waited for him to hand her the printout of the names of all guides at the photo walk. "Thank you."

When they all got up and Jane studied the list of names with Frost peeking over her shoulder, Kelley walked over to Maura, whose attention was captured by a series of sepia-toned nude portraits that left most details to the viewer's imagination.

"I love the interplay between lights and shadows in those," the medical examiner declared as she noticed Kelley expectantly approaching her. "You manage to capture the different shades of their personalities within just one picture. It's very… intriguing."

"Thank you. That's exactly what I was aiming for." Kelley beamed at her praise and then shamelessly let his eyes wander over Maura's perfectly formed body. "Maybe I could interest you in a portrait session? You'd make an excellent subject, if I may say so…"

The blonde blushed and clearly considered the idea, but before she could answer, Jane stepped in and gently dragged her away. "Uh, too bad, but we're rather busy with work and all those murders, you know."

The photographer didn't seem to care and eyed the detective's slender frame. "You're quite photogenic, too… I mean, look at you!"

"Well, we have your number, so, don't call us — we'll call you," Jane warded him off and pushed Maura towards the door, where Frost was already waiting for them while trying not to burst into laughter.

Kelley cocked his head and watched the two women leave. "My camera would love you!" he tried one last time.

"Yeah, not just his camera…," Jane whispered to Maura as they left the studio.


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N:** __Here's another quick one to finish Day 2 of the story. I kinda like it that according to the site stats quite a few of you are following along. So, thanks for reading even if you're lurking. ;-)_

* * *

The sun was about to set when the man stopped his silver sedan at a quiet cul-de-sac close to Bussey Brook Meadow. He let his eyes wander around to make sure the secluded corner didn't have any surveillance cameras or blind spots from which unwanted witnesses could emerge. When he was convinced of the location's suitability for his purpose, he zipped up his jacket and put on his gloves. After one last check of his surroundings, he got out of his car and popped its trunk to reveal the lifeless body of Brenda Williams. The sight of the dead blonde sent his thoughts back to the late afternoon hours when the woman's prolonged quietness had caused him to check her pulse only to realize that she had died too soon. Just like Karen Newman. He silently cursed himself for having thrown the woman against the wall, which had probably precipitated her untimely passing, but then his anger quickly shifted towards Boston Police and he remembered their e-mails. _Maybe this Detective Rizzoli isn't that good after all,_ he thought. _Why is it taking her so long? With all these clues right before her nose… She just needs to look and put them together, damn it!_

The sound of a truck rattling by just two streets away ripped him from his thoughts. _Fuck!_ With three well-rehearsed moves, he heaved the dead woman out of his trunk, threw her body between two trash cans like some piece of worn-out furniture, and slid back behind the wheel.

As the man drove away and merged into the evening rush-hour traffic around the next corner, he obsessively reviewed his plan in his mind. Everything had seemed so simple — kidnap a woman like Darlene, cut her abdomen just like Darlene's had been cut, and then wait for the cops to save her and make him forget that they hadn't saved Darlene. _So simple._ But now, two women were dead already and he still didn't have what he so desperately needed.

_I'll just have to keep trying. I can't stop now!_ He grimaced and reached into his jacket's inside pocket to reveal the printout of all the blonde women he had hand-picked on his computer the day before. He flipped through their profiles while casually steering his car through the busy streets of Boston towards his house just a few miles away.

_You'll get one more chance, Rizzoli. You'd better use it._

* * *

Around 8 p.m., Jane and Maura were seated at their usual table in the Dirty Robber after having spent most of the afternoon hours sorting through the still inconclusive collection of clues and hints again. Without much success. They still didn't know the killer's identity nor the location of his hiding place nor his precise motive. All they knew for sure was that time was running out for Brenda Williams.

_Save me. Save me._ The words painfully rang through Jane's mind again as she ignored the plate of half-eaten fries in front of her and repeatedly checked her phone knowing that the inevitable announcement of Brenda Williams' death would arrive in her inbox any minute now. _I failed again. She was counting on me and I let her down._

Maura finished her kale salad, her mood visibly chastened as well, and worriedly glanced at the brunette across the table. "It's not your fault, Jane," she said, knowing quite well that the detective put her heart and soul into her work and often felt a deeply personal connection to her cases.

The medical examiner's words barely registered with Jane as she leaned back and tried to suppress the harrowing images of Brenda Williams bleeding to death. She rubbed her tired eyes and checked her phone again. Still no new message. "How does it feel when you bleed out?"

Maura swallowed hard at the sadness in her best friend's face. "Jane, don't—"

"Does it hurt?" Jane asked, her stern face leaving no doubt that she wouldn't let this one go without an answer.

The medical examiner leaned back and sighed. "At first, yes. An external injury like this would trigger the body's pain receptors and cause severe pain and anxiety. Adrenaline and endorphins might offset the effect, but you'd certainly feel it. After a while, you'd become light-headed and tired, and eventually, you'd enter a state of hypovolemic shock, fall into a coma,…"

"…and die," Jane finished Maura's explanation as they both tried to find comfort in each other's eyes.

The buzzing sound of Jane's phone interrupted the lingering silence at their table. Hesitantly, the detective reached for the device and checked her new message. Anger and resignation filled her face as she stared at its display before handing it to Maura. "Looks like Brenda Williams just did."

When she read the message on Jane's phone, Maura's face darkened as well. A single photo of Brenda Williams filled most of the display, her body pale as a ghost and her facial features without any sign of life. Below, a hauntingly familiar caption summed up the scene: _TOO LATE. AGAIN._ As she scrolled down to reveal the last part of the message, Maura felt a cold shiver run down her spine: _YOU'LL HEAR FROM ME, DETECTIVE RIZZOLI._

There was no need for words as Jane and Maura both knew what lay ahead of them. Another body. Another autopsy. And soon, another victim. They grabbed their jackets and silently left the Dirty Robber.

* * *

It was long past midnight when Jane stood at the autopsy table in the morgue at BPD and stared at the lifeless body of Brenda Williams in front of her. Shortly after she had left the Dirty Robber with Maura, they had received a call notifying them of the discovery of a corpse of a blonde woman in her late thirties near Bussey Brook Meadow, and Jane had already known the woman's identity before they had even arrived at the scene just twenty minutes later. The detective and the medical examiner had parked their car near the secluded cul-de-sac, made their way past the yellow tape cordoning off the area, and joined the CSRU techs who had already been busy examining the dead woman's body that had been carelessly dumped between two overflowing trash cans. A comparison of her bruised face with the faculty profile photo of Professor Williams had instantly confirmed Jane's assumption of her identity. The remainder of the standard crime scene procedures had been painfully reminiscent of the events from just twenty-four hours before. Maura had examined the dead woman's body, revealed the fresh incision to her abdomen, and denied the presence of any exterior signs of rape. The whole team had searched for fibers, foot prints, tire tracks, or anything else that might help them find their killer, but their hopes had soon been dashed by the lack of any tangible evidence. Eventually, Jane and Maura had finished their examination of the scene and driven back to BPD to wait for the arrival of Brenda Williams' body. Given the urgency and the killer's restless one-day rhythm, Maura had proposed to do the autopsy during the night so they would have more time to focus on whatever would await them on the next morning.

And while the medical examiner was signing off the chain-of-custody papers next door, Jane now stood alone in the morgue and absentmindedly studied Brenda Williams' pale body on the autopsy table.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't find you in time,_ she silently cried inside. _You didn't deserve to die like this. I should have saved you._

Knowing that Maura would return any minute now, Jane swallowed her tears and walked over towards the small desk. She didn't want to burden her best friend with her current feelings of despair, no matter how strong they had grown or how much Maura kept encouraging her to open up. It just didn't feel right. She was supposed to be the strong one. She was supposed to be the one to protect those in need. Not the other way around. _Damn it, I've dealt with tough cases before. What is wrong with me?!_

Jane took a deep breath and opened Maura's laptop to read the killer's e-mails again. She flipped through the six messages and the harrowing images of Karen Newman and Brenda Williams, hoping that somehow she would see something they hadn't noticed before. But it was in vain. They had already analyzed each and every pixel of these photos and there was nothing new to be found. Frustrated, the detective rested her head on her arms, and before she even realized it, her eyes fell shut as the stress of the past few days took its toll.

A few minutes later, Maura returned to the morgue, dressed in her black scrubs and ready to commence Brenda Williams' autopsy. When she spotted the snoozing detective at her desk in a rather awkward and statically inadequate position, she paused and briefly contemplated what to do. Jane certainly needed sleep more than anything else at this point, but the thought of gravity doing its job and suddenly ripping her from her much deserved break definitely warranted a different napping location. Maura tiptoed to her desk and gently shook the brunette. "Jane…"

"What?!" the detective startled up and sleepily looked around. "Sorry, I was just… waiting for you. Can we get started with the autopsy?"

"No," the medical examiner shook her head. "_I_ will get started with the autopsy, but _you_ will lie down in my office and get some sleep. I don't need you snoring in my back while I'm trying to work."

"I don't snore!" Jane protested.

Maura arched her eyebrows. "Well…"

"And I can't let you pull an all-nighter by yourself. There's gotta be something I can do…," the detective tried again.

"Such as hovering next to me and interrupting my process with your running commentary?" Maura was determined not to give in.

"Oh, just admit it," Jane smirked and opted for a different strategy. "Your autopsies would bore the hell out of you without my commentary."

The medical examiner rolled her eyes and pointedly closed the lid of her laptop. "Don't make me sedate you. You know I would."

Jane grimaced and realized the pointlessness of her protest. Maura had once knocked out Lieutenant Cavanaugh with a shot of lorazepam and clearly wouldn't hesitate to use that drug again. Giving up her resistance, the detective got up and followed Maura into her office next door. "But that thing you call a couch is so uncomfortable!"

"For God's sake, Jane," the blonde complained while she arranged the pillows on her admittedly unusual couch. "You've already managed to sleep in your car, at your desk, and on a cardboard pillow in front of Fenway Park when you wanted those World Cup tickets, but—"

"World Series," Jane corrected her.

"What?"

"It's called the World Series. And it was totally worth it!" the detective grinned.

"Well, if you continue to deny your body the sleep it needs, you won't make it to another _World Series_," Maura declared and pointed at the couch.

"Fine," Jane grunted and finally sank down between the pillows. "You're worse than my mother…," she joked but quickly bit her lip when she saw a touch of hurt flash over the medical examiner's face. "I'm sorry, Maura. It's just that… I'm…"

"It's okay," Maura quickly cut her off and gave her an understanding smile.

"You sure you wanna stay up by yourself?" the detective asked as she tried to find a somewhat comfortable position on the rather narrow couch.

"Yes!" the blonde exclaimed with playful annoyance. "Will you finally sleep now?"

"Only if you're going to read me a bedtime story…," Jane chuckled.

Maura rolled her eyes and turned off the light. "Good night, Jane." She quietly closed the door and walked back to the autopsy table, knowing that Jane would probably be sound asleep before she herself had even begun the examination of Brenda Williams' lifeless body.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N: **A little something for your Sunday reading.. probably more to come today._

* * *

In the early morning of the next day, right before the peak of rush hour, the man was again driving through the streets of Boston in pursuit of his next victim. After he had spent the past evening cleaning up the bloody mess that Brenda Williams had left behind on the wooden floor in his living room, he had grabbed his laptop and driven to an Italian 24/7 take-out restaurant just a few blocks away. He had ordered his usual meatball pasta and a bottle of cheap Soave and then spent the night in his car browsing through the comprehensive collection of information about his potential victims that he had meticulously gathered over the past ten months. And after he had compared the blonde women's schedules with map data, traffic forecasts, and their latest status updates on different social media sites, he had concluded that Katherine Oliver would be his best bet for the next morning.

Unfortunately, the man hadn't anticipated that today of all days his chosen victim would be late and half an hour behind her usual schedule. And as he was now following her white family van through the Brookline neighborhood, nervously tapping his fingers on the wheel, the man wondered what had caused the delay and whether he should call the whole thing off.

_No, there's no time to pick another one,_ he decided_. There'll be plenty of opportunities as long as she sticks to her usual Wednesday morning activities._ He slipped his gloves on, hid his eyes behind his sunglasses, and pulled his Red Sox cap deep into his face. After just two days of practice — and ten months of obsessive planning —, all these little steps had already become second nature to him and strengthened his confidence in his ability to follow through with his plan despite Katherine Oliver's spontaneous tardiness.

A few minutes later, the white van parked in front of the St. Mary of the Assumption elementary school, and the woman got out of her car, hurried over to the passenger side, and opened the door for her 7-year-old daughter, who was the spitting image of her mother.

The man stopped his silver sedan a few car lengths away and curiously watched how Katherine Oliver hugged and kissed her little sunshine, then handed her a lunch-box and waved as the blonde girl ran towards her friends at the school's entrance. He wondered what it felt like to have children. A family. A wife. _But now I will never know._ He would have loved to build a family with Darlene, but all his dreams had been brutally smashed to pieces on that one fateful night ten months ago.

When the woman got back into her car and drove off, the man inconspicuously followed her, hoping that there wouldn't be any other unforeseen changes in her schedule. If everything went according to plan, her next stop should be the local library, where she would pick up this week's book for her Tuesday night book club. He knew from her Facebook page that she and the other bookaholics had selected _Gone Girl_ by Gillian Flynn to be read until the coming week because it was all the rave right now and would be turned into a movie very soon. Even though he hadn't read the book himself, he couldn't help but smirk at its title. _Gone Girl. How fitting. Soon, Katherine Oliver will be gone, too. With some luck and more efforts from Detective Rizzoli, she might be found again, but if not…_ The man wondered what he'd do if this third attempt failed just like the previous two. He would definitely have to raise the stakes for the detective. _If Rizzoli isn't looking in the right places, I'll have to force her to pay more attention_. Maybe he would have to make the case more personal for her. He had already started researching her colleagues at BPD, and clearly, there were some interesting options.

He was ripped from his thoughts when Katherine Oliver's white van pulled into a small parking lot — not of the local library but of a second-hand bookstore in a quiet side street. The man grinned at the woman's predictability. He waited until she had parked her car and disappeared inside the store, before he parked his own vehicle in one of the few empty spots in the lot.

For a split second, that nagging voice deep down inside of him cried out again, begged him to choose another candidate and to let this woman go home and be there for her daughter in the afternoon. But the anger and pain over the loss of his beloved Darlene instantly drowned whatever sanity was still left in his mind. _This will actually be beneficial to my plan,_ he convinced himself. The woman's little daughter would be incentive enough for Detective Rizzoli to step up her game and finally help him find closure. _Yes, this will work!_

The thought of his pending success filled the man's broken heart with excitement as Katherine Oliver emerged from the bookstore, a brown paper bag under her arm, and strolled towards her car. _It's now or never._

Except for a few cars, the parking lot was still empty, and if he followed his usual routine, there wouldn't be enough time for anybody to stop him. He took a deep breath and grimaced with determination.

And then, everything happened like a well-rehearsed dance routine. While the woman was fishing for her car keys in her pocket, the man got out of his sedan, leaped towards the blonde, rammed his fist into her right temple, and opened his arms to catch her body before it would hit the ground — except that Katherine Oliver didn't fall down. She staggered and momentarily lost her balance, but just a second later, she instinctively clutched the newly bought book in her paper bag and whacked it into the man's right jaw. He moaned in surprise, turned away his face, and blindly snatched at the woman. Katherine Oliver knew this would be her only chance, and she intended to use it.

"Help!" she cried out and staggered away from the man.

But like a wounded beast, the man got even more furious by his pain and by her attempts to escape. He seized her from behind, spun her around, and sent her head flying against her car. The blonde's fingers let go off the book and she finally slumped down.

Panting heavily, the man glanced around. Surely, the noise of their fight couldn't have gone unnoticed. He heaved the woman over his shoulder, hurried to his car, and popped the trunk. With a mad grunt, he threw Katherine Oliver's body into his car, slammed the trunk shut, and got back behind the wheel. Right when he drove off the lot with squeaking tires, the elderly owner of the small bookstore stepped outside, but it was already too late. The only thing he could do was watch the silver sedan disappear around the corner.

* * *

Around the same time, Jane was standing in front of her locker in the basement of Boston Police Headquarters, dressed in her usual black slacks and a tank top, her dark and curly hair still damp from a shower just minutes before. Lost in thought, the detective was staring at her reflection in the mirror on the inside of the locker's door.

She had woken up right before 7 a.m. after a surprisingly long and deep sleep despite her curled-up position on Maura's narrow couch. Somehow, she had managed to bring her numb bones back into their appropriate position, and after a long yawn and a short stretching, she had felt awake enough to face the day and the next e-mail from the killer that would undoubtedly arrive very soon. She had peeked into the autopsy room and thought about making a random the-morning-after joke — her own special way to let Maura know that she was feeling better and appreciated her concern the night before. But when she had found the medical examiner still typing up her report on Brenda Williams' autopsy, Jane had decided to let her finish undisturbed and just left a little note on Maura's desk before heading towards the fitness room in the basement. A 20-minute workout on one of the treadmills had jump-started her body, and a quick shower afterward had temporarily washed away her memories of the previous night's gloomy ending near Bussey Brook Meadow.

But now that she was staring at her own tired reflection in the mirror before reaching for a spare shirt she always kept at hand in a gym bag in her locker, all her doubts about her job and its purpose began to creep back into her mind. Her position as a detective didn't come with the comfortable rhythm of a 9-to-5 job, and she had spent many a night in the office or out in the streets without time to stop at her apartment for a quick shower, dinner, or any other activity ordinary people would enjoy in their spare time. Jane tried to remember the last time she had done something for fun outside of work — besides hanging out with Maura, which, of course, was fun except when the medical examiner used her as a guinea pig for strange new vegan food or other crazy activities. But other than that, Jane barely found time for anything else beyond work. _Maybe I should indeed take a day off? Or a week? A month even?_ And there they were again, her lingering doubts about her career, about the whole point of it all. She reached for her badge and weighed it in her hand. _Does it really matter what I do? _

When another cop entered the locker rooms, whistling to himself and briefly acknowledging Jane with a friendly nod, she took a deep breath and grabbed her gun and jacket. She glanced at her own tired reflection again, then shook her head and closed her locker's door. _Out of sight, out of mind. I got work to do._

Ten minutes later, after a quick phone call with Lieutenant Cavanaugh to update him about her case, Jane arrived back at Maura's office and found the medical examiner behind her desk. She had already changed from her black scrubs into dark pants and a fashionable blouse and barely showed any signs of the long night.

"Okay, where are you hiding your clone?" Jane asked as she noticed her friend's perfect appearance and plopped down on the couch.

"My what?" Maura looked up in confusion.

"You look like you've just returned from a spa weekend, so where is the other Maura who stayed up all night and did the autopsy?"

Seeing that the detective was comfortably slouching between the pillows again, Maura tried to suppress a satisfied smile. "I thought you didn't like my couch?"

The brunette playfully punched one of the cushions. "I'll like it as soon as you add more pillows… and replace it with a real couch." Jane grinned but switched to a more serious tone when Maura ignored her teasing and focused on the autopsy report in front of her. "Found anything?"

"More of the same," the medical examiner said with a sigh. "Perimortem bruises, the same cotton fibers under her fingernails, and a very similar incision to her abdomen. She bled out, and lividity indicates that she must have died shortly before her body was found."

"So, our killer is hiding somewhere in or near Chestnut Hill?" the detective mused.

Maura nodded, then hesitated for a moment. "And it looks like he's getting more violent. The second victim had more bruises than the first one as well as a perimortem thorax trauma and two broken ribs."

Jane nervously rubbed the scars on the back of her hands. "Yeah, because we're not doing what he expects us to do. He's losing patience."

Maura wanted to continue the detective's thought but was interrupted by the faint buzzing of Jane's phone.

The detective checked the caller ID and frowned before answering the call. "Rizzoli." After a few seconds, Jane got up and began to pace back and forth in the small office. Whoever was on the other end of the line obviously had important news. "Okay, keep me up to speed, alright?" she eventually ended the call, then tensely looked at Maura. "Apparently, a woman was abducted from a parking lot in Brookline this morning. They're still at the scene figuring out what exactly is going on, but that's gotta be our killer. I don't believe in coincidences."

"Well," Maura protested shyly, "statistically speaking, coincidences happen much more frequently than one would assume. For example, the probability of two people sharing the same birthday is already above 50% in a group of just 23…"

Jane rolled her eyes and waited for the medical examiner to stop. "And the probability of me getting bored is close to 100% in a group of just me and you."

A sudden knock at the door to the medical examiner's office averted the next round of their morning banter. The two women turned around to find Angela in the door frame carrying a tablet with two plates of bunny-shaped pancakes and two cups of coffee. "I heard you two had a long night, so I thought I'd bring you some breakfast."

"That's very nice of you, thank you!" Maura smiled at her and eagerly reached for one of the plates and cups.

"How did you know we've been here all night?" Jane asked and curiously studied her mother's face.

"Sean told me…," the older Rizzoli woman hesitantly admitted.

"When? I just told him fifteen minutes ago?" the detective continued her interrogation.

"Uh, I was in the car with him when you called…," Angela sheepishly cocked her head and tried to appease her daughter with the remaining pancakes.

Annoyed, Jane reached for one of the napkins on the tablet and wrapped a pancake in it before turning to Maura. "I'll chip in a pair of cows if you go ahead and hire her that milkman…" She gave her mother one last admonishing look, then darted off. "I gotta go."

"What milkman?" Angela asked in confusion.

Maura just chuckled and shook her head as she watched the detective disappear towards the elevators.


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N:** Hope you're all enjoying your Sunday! Does anybody have some sunshine for me? Nothing but rain here.. oh well, more time to upload things. Here you go. And regarding the latest review (thank you!): I'm afraid it will get personal after this one. Sorry. ;-P_

* * *

Just moments later, Jane arrived in the homicide squad room upstairs and headed straight to Korsak's desk. The sergeant was preoccupied with a report on his computer and unaware of the detective's arrival. "Hey," Jane mumbled as she gulped down the last bite of her pancake. "Any news from the kidnapping in Brookline?"

"Frost is still on the phone with the unit on site." Korsak got up from his chair and signaled Jane to follow him to the BRIC. "Did Dr. Isles' autopsy reveal anything?"

Jane shook her head. "Not really. Except that our killer has become more violent. We have to stop him before it's getting worse."

They exchanged concerned looks when the older sergeant held the BRIC's glass door open for the brunette detective. Inside the intelligence center, Frost was standing behind a desk and taking notes while listening into his phone. Moments later, he hung up and the three of them gathered around one of the desks.

"Okay, what have we got?" Jane impatiently looked at her partner.

Frost glanced over his notes. "Well, it's too soon to tell if this has anything to do with our case, but if it does, then it looks like our killer's beginning to make mistakes." He reached for the keyboard on the desk and opened the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles database. A few keystrokes later, a blonde woman's driver's ID popped up on one of the flat screens on the wall. "The woman's name is Katherine Oliver — they IDed her through the credit card she used in the bookstore. Whoever kidnapped her attacked her on the parking lot, but something went wrong. She made some noise and the owner of the bookstore saw the kidnapper's car take off."

Jane's eyes filled with hope. "We got the license number?"

"No," Frost grimaced. "But we got a pretty good description of the car. It's a start."

"_If_ it really is our killer…," Korsak interjected.

"Well, look at her," Jane pointed at the woman's picture on the wall. "Blonde, about the same age, same part of the city… It's only a matter of time before we get the next e-mail."

"Okay, let's assume she _is_ our third victim," the older sergeant suggested. "How do we find her?"

Jane scratched her head. "You know what doesn't make sense to me? That first clue our killer sent. He said we should find our victim's car and then we'd find her, but Karen Newman's car had been abandoned next to the convenience store, and the owner's alibi is water-proof. So, what was her car supposed to tell us?"

"Maybe he just wanted us to find it so we'd know the woman's identity," Frost suggested.

"We're missing something," Jane declared. "Frost, can you get us the evidence found with our first victim's car? I wanna check it again."

"Sure," her partner nodded and darted out of the room.

Korsak intently studied Katherine Oliver's profile on the flat screen on the wall. "You think we'll—"

The buzzing of Jane's phone signaling the arrival of a new e-mail interrupted his thought, and the two of them knowingly looked at each other before Jane reached for the keyboard and opened her e-mail client. Her assumption from two minutes before was instantly confirmed when a new message from the killer showed up in her inbox. She took a deep breath, then opened the e-mail's attachment and revealed three harrowing pictures of Katherine Oliver in the killer's lair. Just like her two predecessors, the blonde woman was bleeding, pale, and horrified. And as before, the main caption consisted of two words: _SAVE ME._

When Jane scrolled down to read the killer's latest teaser below, his words felt like daggers thrust right into her heart: _BETTER HURRY UP, DETECTIVE RIZZOLI! HER LITTLE DAUGHTER IS COUNTING ON YOU._

Korsak silently sat down at the computer next to her and opened another database. Seconds later, he turned to Jane with a gloomy face. "7-year-old daughter. No husband." He sighed and got up. "I'll have them pick her up from school." With heavy shoulders, he left the BRIC just when Frost returned with a box containing all the evidence found in Karen Newman's car.

"It's her," Jane informed Frost tersely and pointed at the e-mail on her screen. "See if you find a connection between all three women. I'll go through this again," she added when her partner handed her the evidence box.

_There's gotta be something,_ Jane thought as she rummaged through the purse in the evidence box and opened Karen Newman's wallet. _We'll get him today. We have to!_ She looked through several credit cards, three crinkled photos of the blonde woman with friends and family, and a small pile of receipts. She shook her head in disappointment and studied the attached list that documented all individual pieces of evidence.

"Katherine Oliver works as a translator, runs her own business," Frost said while browsing through various files on his screen. "There doesn't seem to be any direct connection to the other two women, and I don't see her on the list with the photo walk participants either."

Jane emptily stared at her desk while her mind was desperately trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle. All of a sudden, one of the photos laying face-down on the table caught her eye and woke her from her trance.

"What?" her partner asked when he noticed her agitation.

Without a word, the brunette handed him the photo and nervously flipped through a stack of papers on the desk behind them until she found what she'd been looking for.

As Frost read the signature line on the back of the photo, he suddenly realized the connection. "Taken at _PICTURE PERFECT _photo studio… Our killer—"

"… wrote something about a perfect picture, yes!" Jane nodded. "Find out the owner's name!"

"Already on it," the younger detective declared and let his fingers fly over his keyboard. Seconds later, the ID of a dark-haired, bearded man in his late 30s popped up on the screen. "His name's Malcolm Azarov," Frost read from the file.

Jane eagerly studied the list of names in her hand and hope flashed over her face. "He was one of the photo walk guides."

Their faces full of determination, both detectives got up and hurried out of the BRIC.

* * *

Half an hour later, Jane, Frost, and Korsak got out of their cars in Chestnut Hill and marched towards the _PICTURE PERFECT _photo studio. Two police cars were already parked in front of the building, and several bystanders were curiously watching the scene.

As they rushed to the studio's entrance, Frost kept one eye on his tablet PC. "Azarov was arrested five months ago for domestic violence, but his girlfriend eventually dropped all charges," he informed his two colleagues.

"How convenient," Jane snorted before they all entered the studio.

Inside, the studio's entrance area was filled with several racks and tables displaying cameras, picture frames, and a variety of other photography-related items for sale. The walls were adorned with sample client photos — family portraits, wedding pictures, fun shots with fake backgrounds.

A college-aged girl was leaning against the checkout counter and curiously eyed the three detectives. When Jane flashed her badge and signaled her to leave the store, a hint of fear filled her face. "What's going on? I'm waiting for my friend…"

"And where is your friend?" Jane asked impatiently.

The girl pointed towards a black curtain leading to an adjacent room. "She's… she's getting her picture taken…"

Frost silently nodded to Jane and the two of them approached the curtain, hands on their guns in case of any unexpected surprises. When the calm voice of a photographer giving posing instructions and the shy giggling of another young girl were heard from behind the curtain, Jane relaxed and pulled it open to reveal a fully equipped studio with flashes, soft boxes, and reflectors. A brunette girl was sitting on a stool in the middle of the room and smiling into the camera of a photographer whose back was turned towards the curtain and the detectives.

When the girl's smile froze and she looked towards the room's entrance, the photographer turned around and his face filled with anger upon noticing his surprise visitors. "What the hell? We're in the middle of a photo shoot. You can't—"

"We can," Jane cut him off and revealed her badge. "You're Malcolm Azarov?"

"Yes…," the man hesitantly confirmed.

The detective signaled the girl on the stool to get up. "Your friend's waiting outside. Sorry, but you'll have to find another photographer." She turned to Azarov. "This one's busy now."

As soon as the girl had stumbled out of the room, Jane pushed the photographer against the wall. "Where is she?"

"Who?" the man asked with a trembling voice.

"The woman you kidnapped," Frost growled and blocked the suspect's attempts to withdraw from Jane. "The one bleeding to death!"

"I… I have no idea what you're talking about," Azarov whimpered, but then a certain stubbornness filled his voice. "And… and you need a warrant or I'll have to ask you to leave."

Jane reached into her pocket, revealed a folded document, and pointedly thrust it into the photographer's hand. "Here's your warrant. And you're leaving with us."

* * *

Just after noon, Malcolm Azarov was crouched on a chair at a table in the middle of a small, bleak interview room at Boston Police Headquarters, a uniformed officer standing guard in the corner behind him. Across the table, Sergeant Korsak had sat down on one of two additional chairs, his shoulders broad with confidence and his attentive eyes closely watching the suspect's every move and gesture. He took a sip from a bottle of water and leaned back. It was all part of the game he had played hundreds of times before. He had interviewed all kinds of suspects — from the embarrassed first-time offender to the ice-cold serial killer. Some had been shy and cooperative, whereas others had sensed a trap behind every question they had been asked. But no matter what type of suspect Korsak had dealt with, his routine had always remained the same. Keep calm, ask questions, write down answers.

Today, however, even the experienced sergeant had a hard time remaining calm. Though he appeared at ease on the outside, his blood was boiling in his veins and he wished he could just ignore all rules and protocols and instead shake the truth out of Azarov. After their promising discovery of the _PICTURE PERFECT_ connection in the morning, things had quickly changed for the worse. They had searched every nook and cranny of the photo studio hoping to find a hint no matter how tiny that would lead them to Katherine Oliver. In vain. They had sealed off Azarov's apartment just a few blocks down the road and turned it upside down as well. Again without success. They had seized his computer, checked his files, traced his digital tracks. Nothing. Azarov's red sports car hadn't matched the description given by the bookstore owner either, and several of his clients had confirmed his presence in his photo studio all morning.

Except for his involvement in the photo walk and the killer's indirect reference to Azarov's studio, there wasn't much left that would convict him of kidnapping and killing the three blonde women. And yet, Korsak couldn't shake the feeling that the bearded, nervous man across the table was somehow connected to their killer.

"Want some water?" the sergeant asked upon noticing Azarov's repeated glances towards his water bottle.

"I want my lawyer," the suspect defiantly declared.

Korsak shrugged and took another sip from his bottle. "Already on his way." Of course, Azarov had asked for his lawyer. Given his previous arrest, he was very much aware of his rights and standard procedures.

As if on cue, the door opened and a middle-aged man in suit and tie entered, followed by Jane, who tossed a folder on the table and exchanged an annoyed glance with Korsak before pushing the remaining chair towards Azarov's lawyer and building herself up behind the sergeant.

The lawyer sat down, calmly opened his briefcase, placed a stack of papers in front of him, and carefully aligned the individual sheets.

"Should we give you some privacy so you can finish fondling your papers?" Jane grunted impatiently.

Slick and unimpressed, the lawyer looked up and smiled. "I prefer not to rush things. But given how you barged in my client's studio despite the lack of any incriminating evidence, I doubt you'll understand."

The detective stepped towards the table and scowled at Azarov's legal aid. "There's a woman bleeding to death as we speak, so how about you cut the crap and help us find her?"

"Well, as far as I can see, there is nothing tangible that would prove my client's involvement in this case," the lawyer explained quietly. "But as a common courtesy, Mr. Azarov will help you as best as he can. However, I suggest you calm down and treat him with the respect he deserves, Detective."

Suppressing her urge to leap across the table and wipe the smirk off the lawyer's face, Jane shook her head and turned away in frustration.

Korsak knew it was his turn to break the stalemate. He opened the folder Jane had brought with her, cleared his throat, and mustered as much politeness as possible given the circumstances. "You were one of the guides during a recent photo walk," he said to Azarov and placed two photos of Karen Newman and Brenda Williams in front of the photographer. "You remember these two women?"

Azarov glanced at the two portraits and shrugged. "Maybe. There were dozens of people, and I didn't really talk to all of them."

"How about when you took their pictures?" Korsak asked and revealed one of Karen Newman's photos with the _PICTURE PERFECT_ signature line on the back as well as another portrait of Brenda Williams. "We've checked your records — both women had their portraits taken in your studio a few weeks ago."

"So what? I take hundreds of portraits each month. I don't remember every individual client," Azarov shrugged again.

As Korsak continued his interview, Jane leaned against the dimly lit wall behind him and tried to fight those nagging thoughts of Katherine Oliver that had been haunting her ever since the killer's new e-mail had arrived in the morning. _Her daughter is counting on me,_ she remembered the e-mail's message. _And while we're stuck here with this sleazeball and his legal bullshit, the clock is ticking down for her mother. _The voices of Korsak, Azarov, and his lawyer barely registered with Jane as the images of the bleeding woman crept back into her mind and two words drowned everything else. _Save me. Save me. Save me._

At the same time, Frost and Maura were standing in the observation room next door and following the interview through the one-way mirror. The young detective shook his head. "It's not looking good."

"Isn't there anything else we can do?" the medical examiner eagerly asked.

"Not really," Frost sighed. "The lab is still going through all the evidence, but Azarov's alibi is tight. Maybe he's still an accomplice, but I don't think he's our killer."

For a moment, the two of them silently watched the interview in the room next door. Korsak was still questioning Azarov about his involvement in the photo walk and about the victims' visits to his studio, while Jane was absentmindedly staring at the floor.

Noticing his partner's tense posture, Frost hesitantly turned to Maura. "Has Jane been a bit… off balance lately?"

Maura worriedly studied the brunette in the room next door. "I don't… well, she's…"

"I'm sorry," Frost apologized when he sensed the medical examiner's uneasiness. "I didn't mean to make you talk behind her back—"

"No, it's okay," Maura assured him. "Jane has… She's been under a lot of stress, and I've been trying to get her to take a day off, but…"

Frost knowingly shook his head. "Yeah, that's not gonna work. We'd probably have to lock her up." A mischievous grin flashed across his face. "Come to think about it… There _is_ a free cell next to the drunk tank…"

They both chuckled at the thought but a beeping sound from Frost's tablet PC cut their moment of relief short. The detective checked the device's display, then worriedly looked at Maura. "We got a new e-mail from our killer."

"And since Azarov is right there…," the blonde pointed at the interview room.

"He's not our guy," Frost conceded and darted out of the room.

Through the one-sided mirror, Maura watched with concern how Frost entered the interview room and whispered the news to Jane and Korsak. The brunette's face darkened even more and she walked out of the room without so much as looking at Azarov and his slick lawyer.

_How much worse can it get?_ Maura wondered as she left the observation room to find Jane.


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: **Last one for the weekend. Of course, you've all seen this coming, haven't you?_

* * *

The clock on the wall in the homicide squad room at Boston Police Headquarters showed 5 p.m. when Jane returned from a stressful afternoon filled with briefings and meetings without any time to breathe in between. After the inconclusive interview with Azarov and his lawyer, she had first updated Lieutenant Cavanaugh on the case before joining him and Korsak for a press conference with half a dozen reporters and journalists from Boston's major news outlets. As soon as the media had received all necessary information for a news alert, Jane had rushed back to her desk to get up to speed herself and then spent several hours calling and meeting with the crime lab and CSRU techs in hopes of finding the killer's latest victim before it would be too late. But despite all efforts, they still didn't know where the killer was hiding. And as the detective now sank back into her chair, Katherine Oliver's chances to be saved and reunited with her little daughter Sophia were diminishing with every passing minute.

Jane wearily glanced at her colleagues. At the desk across from hers, Frost was absorbed in various files and DMV databases on his computer trying to track down the killer's car. A few hours ago, they had spotted a silver Chevrolet Impala matching the bookstore owner's description in the footage from a public surveillance camera. But what had initially appeared to be that one decisive clue that could lead them to the killer had eventually become yet another dead end when the car's license plates had turned out to be stolen and the camera had only captured a very blurry picture of the driver that was of no use for BPD's facial recognition software. And if the sedan's tags had been stolen, it was very likely that the vehicle itself hadn't been obtained legally either. Thus, Frost's meticulous attempts to identify the killer via official registries was more difficult than the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.

A few feet away, at his desk by the door, Korsak was going through the list of participants and guides from the photo walk again in order to check for any other potential links between the three victims. They hadn't found any connection between Katherine Oliver and Malcolm Azarov yet — neither had her name appeared in the photographer's studio appointments and receipts, nor had it been found in the official registration list for the photo walk. But it was possible that she had spontaneously decided to join the walk at the last minute without formally signing up. Thus, Korsak had begun a process of elimination to exclude everybody who was rather unlikely to be a serial-killer — children, senior photography enthusiasts, business people with full schedules and watertight alibis, tourists from out of town or overseas. The sergeant sighed in frustration as he crossed off another name on his seemingly endless list. As he was about to continue, his attention was caught by Jane reaching for the remote of a small TV set on the wall next to her desk. She turned up the volume just when a news segment about their case had started.

A gray-haired reporter standing in front of BPD Headquarters briefly summed up the case, his face filled with the usual blend of seriousness and sensationalism so typical for local TV. A marquee at the bottom of the screen informed viewers in bold letters about the latest news on the _CHESTNUT HILL KILLER _and provided an emergency number for people to call with any hints they might have.

"Police are particularly interested in a silver Chevrolet Impala," the reporter explained while a picture of the car as captured by the surveillance camera was filling the screen. "Witnesses are sought who have seen either this car or any other suspicious activity on the following dates and at these locations," the reporter continued as a listing of the approximate times and places of the three kidnappings was shown.

The news then switched to a recorded segment with Lieutenant Cavanaugh speaking into half a dozen microphones held right into his face, while Jane and Korsak tensely stood in the background. "We ask you to remain calm and observant," Cavanaugh pleaded. "There is no reason to panic, but we recommend you do not go out alone at night or in the morning if you don't have to, especially not in and around Chestnut Hill, Brookline, Roxbury and surrounding neighborhoods."

An overzealous young reporter shoved her microphone into the lieutenant's face. "Are we dealing with a serial killer here? Is it true that he assaults his victims and then lets them bleed to death?"

"I can't comment on that," Cavanaugh said in a calm, reserved voice.

As the lieutenant was about to be bombarded with the next series of questions, Jane turned off the TV and tossed the remote aside. She tiredly rubbed her nose, then got up and stared at the white board behind Frost's desk. For at least the tenth time this afternoon, she studied the printout of the killer's latest e-mail he had sent while she and Korsak had been interviewing Azarov. Aside from yet another two pictures of Katherine Oliver's silent torment and the usual _TICK-TOCK_, the killer had once again added a little teaser to challenge Jane's resolve: _YOU'RE SO CLOSE, DETECTIVE RIZZOLI!_ _DON'T LET LITTLE SOPHIA GROW UP WITHOUT HER MOMMY!_

The killer's words painfully rang through Jane's mind. _So close. So close? How can we be close? _She agitatedly paced up and down in front of the white board. _Why the hell doesn't he tell us where she is if he wants us to save her?! She's dying right now and we can't do anything! _When a picture of Katherine Oliver and her little daughter Sophia in the upper half of the white board caught her eye, Jane unconsciously clenched her fist until her knuckles turned white. With every passing minute that she was unable to reunite the kidnapped mother with her daughter, the urge to ignore police protocol and to just go out there and hunt down this monster at all costs kept growing stronger inside of her. _I have to do something! There's gotta be a way. I have to save her!_

As Jane stood in front of the white board, angrily biting her lip and silently cursing her own perceived failure, Korsak stepped closer and studied the collection of evidence on the board before worriedly glancing at the brunette.

"Don't give me that look, Korsak," Jane grunted as she sensed the sergeant's eyes resting on her.

"We'll find him, Jane," her former partner promised.

Before Jane was able to retort, the sharp e-mail alert she had set on her computer to be notified of new messages from the killer rang out. Jane, Frost, and Korsak frowned at each other, then Jane wordlessly walked to her desk and opened her e-mail client. Even though she had known what to expect and had seen far more gruesome crime scenes before, the single image of Katherine Oliver's lifeless body and the realization that her little daughter was now all alone hit her at full tilt.

"Damn it!"

For a few seconds, Jane just stared at her screen and hung her head, the image of the dead woman forever etched in her mind. But as Korsak and Frost hesitantly approached her desk, Jane finally gave in to the fury raging through her veins and angrily swept a stack of papers off the table. Before anybody could hold her back, she bolted out of the bullpen just when Maura appeared in the door frame and instantly sensed that something was very wrong.

"Jane? What—" the medical examiner asked in confusion when the brunette stormed past her.

"Not now!" Jane shouted without even turning around.

As Maura was about to hurry after her friend, Korsak stopped her and emphatically shook his head. "Doc, no. Leave her alone for a while."

Helplessly, Maura let her eyes wander over the loose papers scattered on the floor and back towards the empty hallway. Jane was gone.

* * *

At the same time and just a few miles away, the man was having a similar fit of rage as he watched the same news report on his computer in his dimly lit living room. When the silver Chevy Impala was shown again and the gray-haired reporter repeated the main facts currently known about the Chestnut Hill Killer — about him —, the man furiously crumpled up the styrofoam cup in his right hand and threw it against the wall.

"Damn it!" he yelled in frustration.

His pulse reaching unhealthily high levels, the man angrily paced up and down and repeatedly glanced towards the dark empty corner that had seen three women die in vain over the past three days. _This is not how it's supposed to happen! I have to find a way to make things right! There's gotta be a way!_

After circling the table in the middle of the room a few more times, he anxiously sat down in front of his laptop. The computer's desktop was empty except for a single icon linking to a directory called _DARLENE_. Tiredly rubbing his eyes, the man double-clicked the lone icon and opened a folder with various documents and files. For a moment, he let his cursor hover over a video file called _Darlene_2012_12_29 _until he had mustered the strength to open it.

When the computer's multimedia software played the noisy recording of a scene from the exact same living room the man was sitting in at the very moment, he let out a sigh and began to cry. With teary eyes, he watched for the hundredth time how his beloved Darlene was lying in the dark corner of the living room, her shirt stained with her own blood, her blonde hair loosely framing her pale face. For a little more than a minute, the woman silently whimpered, then her body went limp and she let out her dying breath. With trembling fingers, the man gently touched the blonde on his screen and stroke her motionless body as if he could magically bring her back to life. _Oh Darlene, my dear Darlene… Why did you leave me? I tried to save you…_

Wiping the tears from his eyes and drowning his pain with a heavy draught from his beer, the man eventually heaved himself up and walked over to the corner opposite of the one in which the women had died. He climbed up a chair and carefully removed a ventilation cover to reveal a tiny camera hidden in the wall. After verifying that the camera's recording light was blinking rhythmically and everything was still functional, the man closed the ventilation cover, hopped off the chair, and returned to his desk.

Feeling that eerily familiar calmness finally taking control of his body and soothing his pain, he switched to another program folder on his computer and opened a live feed from the tiny camera high up in the wall behind him.

_It's time to let Detective Rizzoli know that failure is not an option,_ the man thought as he double-checked his setup. _Now more than ever._

* * *

Darkness had fallen when Maura stopped her blue Prius on the small parking lot next to the _GRAND SLAM_ batting cage facility near Franklin Park. She stepped out of her car and looked around. The area was deserted except for a shabby old Ford that had been forgotten at the other end of the lot. The eerie silence was only broken by the rhythmic _BANG_ of someone batting leathery balls into the night.

Maura followed the noise, took a few turns between locker rooms and an appliance building, and finally spotted a lone figure angrily swinging at balls that a creaky pitching machine incessantly fired at the batting cage. The blonde stepped closer, leaned against the cage, and worriedly watched the exasperated brunette on the other side of the fence.

Jane didn't notice her concerned observer and waited for the next pitch. The ball promptly shot out of the machine and spun towards the detective's face. She slammed it into the night with another loud _BANG_.

Five seconds passed until the next ball was fired at Jane. She swung her bat and missed by an inch.

"Damn it!" she cursed to herself and furiously kicked some dirt off the batter's plate. When the pitching machine had no more balls to offer, Jane slouched her shoulders and wearily turned around.

"Hi," Maura greeted her softly.

Jane insecurely averted her face. "How did you know I was here?"

"Sergeant Korsak told me. He said when you were partners, you used to come here after work when you had a really bad day," Maura explained.

"Gee, what makes you think I'm having a bad day?"

Jane's sarcastic tone didn't conceal the grief in her voice. It wasn't the first time that Maura saw her best friend struggle with a particularly difficult case, but a string of stressful, sleepless weeks with multiple homicides culminating in the Chestnut Hill killing spree seemed to have extinguished the detective's ability to shake off her worries and recover her spirit. Maura sighed and sat down on a weather-worn bench next to the cage.

Jane pulled a sweater over her BPD t-shirt and silently gathered her belongings, then shuffled to the bench and sank down.

For a little while, the two women just sat together in the dark until Maura reluctantly broke the silence. "They found her body about two hours ago… in a side road near Millennium Park."

Jane buried her head in her hands and let a few more moments pass before she finally peered at Maura. "You mad at me?"

The medical examiner seemed genuinely surprised. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"Because I walked out on you…," the detective offered apologetically.

Maura shook her head. "We lost three victims in three days. Your reaction is simply the epitome of who you are, Jane."

Jane arched her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you're not a 9-to-5 detective. You truly identify with your job, and you care about the people you vowed to protect."

"Yeah, I do," Jane admitted quietly. She rubbed her temples, searching for the right words. "It's just that… everything has been feeling so pointless lately… No matter what we do, people end up dead. I'm so… tired of it. And then Ma keeps telling me I should be doing something else for a living… I don't know, maybe she is right, and—"

"What? No!" Maura gasped. "No. I don't want to hear anything like that from you ever again." She took the worn-out detective's hands in her own. "Look at me."

Jane faced her best friend with sad eyes.

"You're a good detective, Jane," Maura assured her. "You can't save everyone, and sometimes you really just need to take a break. But you're not going to give up. People rely on you. They need you, Jane."

When Maura noticed the detective's stern features brighten up a little, her serious voice yielded to a more playful tone. "And I need you, too, because I couldn't deal with Detective Frost losing his stomach contents all over my table when he attends my autopsies instead of you."

Jane laughed at the thought. "Right. We don't want to contaminate all the other stomach contents you're collecting down there."

"Exactly," Maura agreed, pleased to see the detective regain her confidence. She supportively squeezed her friend's hands, then got up and took Jane's bag. "How about we grab some food and get you home?"

"Hmm, okay." The brunette picked up her bat and followed the blonde towards the parking lot.

After a few steps, Jane sheepishly glanced at Maura. "Can we have pizza?"

"If we must," Maura sighed.

"And beer?"

"Fine."

"And maybe an extra-large bacon burger for dessert?"

"Don't push it, Jane."

Jane chuckled at ease as they strolled back to Maura's car.

* * *

Two hours later, one last slice of mushroom pizza lay in an otherwise empty box on Jane's couch table amidst an assortment of police reports, crime scene photos, and handwritten notes. A half-emptied bottle of beer next to the pizza box was beginning to leave a wet stain on a stack of papers.

On the modest couch next to the table sat Jane, dressed in a fresh BPD t-shirt and jeans. Clearly tempted, she peered at the pizza box, then glanced towards her small kitchen, where Maura was getting herself some water. When the urge to silence her still rumbling stomach grew larger than her distaste for mushrooms, Jane inconspicuously snatched the last slice just before Maura came back to the couch.

"But… that was mine!" the blonde complained when she saw Jane devour the remains of her mushroom half of the pizza.

"Hey, I'm doing you a favor here," the detective muttered while taking another bite. "I mean, look at all this grease and… and there's no salad on it. Really, this isn't good for you."

"Neither is starving to death," Maura pointed out and plopped down on the couch.

"Sorry…," Jane grinned and gulped down the rest of the pizza.

The medical examiner playfully shook her head, then reached for Jane's laptop on the table. She opened a map of Boston with several digital pins marking all locations relevant to their current case and intently studied their distribution.

"What are you doing?" Jane asked and curiously leaned over.

"I'm trying to see if there's a pattern that could lead us to the killer's address," Maura explained. "Look, all three victims have been abducted somewhere north of Boylston Street, and every time, he has moved closer towards the city. The bodies, however, have all been found in the south, moving away from the city."

The detective squinted at the map. "He's going round in circles…"

"Yes," the medical examiner nodded. "It would also match his MO — he's sending you the same messages over and over again. Somehow, he is stuck…"

"Like a broken record…," Jane thought aloud and scratched her head. "Okay, but how does this help us find him?"

"I don't know yet," Maura admitted. "But maybe we can at least narrow down the area where he could be hiding. You said he's losing patience, which means he would take more risks and be less careful."

"So, he's kidnapping these women in more crowded neighborhoods, where the risk of getting caught is higher," the detective mused. "And when he dumps their bodies, he no longer bothers driving very far and instead picks more convenient locations closer to his house." She pointed at the two locations the farthest west and traced a vertical strip with her fingers. "Which means he could be hiding anywhere between Chestnut Hill, Oak Hill, and West Roxbury. That's still a lot of area."

"Yes," the medical examiner sighed.

"Hmm, I'll have a few extra units patrol the streets," Jane decided. "Maybe we can at least prevent another kidnapping."

"You think he'll try again?" Maura asked reluctantly.

"Yeah," the detective said. "As long as he doesn't get what he wants, he'll keep going."

The medical examiner checked her watch and got up. "Speaking of which… I gotta go. Are you gonna be alright?"

"Yeah, sure," the brunette assured her. "But you can stay over if you want. It's already late…"

"I can't," Maura regretted. "I have a meeting with the crime lab first thing in the morning, and—"

"And you can't possibly attend in a wrinkled dress…," Jane teased.

"Well, that and I have to look after Bass," the medical examiner explained. "He's been rather moody lately. Maybe it's because you keep ignoring him when you're at my house."

Jane chuckled at the thought of Maura's giant tortoise. "Fine. Next time I'm there, I'll race him around your couch if that helps." She got up and walked Maura to the door. "Alright, I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Good night, Jane."

"Night."

As Jane watched the blonde leave, she realized how much more relaxed she felt compared to just a few hours before when the photos of their third victim had almost broken her spirit.

"Hey, Maura…," she called after her.

Maura turned around and questioningly looked at her.

"Thank you," Jane smiled and meant it from the bottom of her heart.

"You're welcome," Maura returned her smile before disappearing down the stairs.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the medical examiner pulled her blue Prius into the driveway of her Beacon Hill manor. The house lay dark, and only the brickstone pathway was dimly illuminated by the night light over the front door.

Maura glanced at her guest house, which was equally quiet and dark. _Angela has probably gone out with Lieutenant Cavanaugh again,_ she thought. When she imagined Jane's reaction to the news, she couldn't help but chuckle to herself. First, Jane's brother had decided to follow her footsteps, then her mother had taken over the Division One Café, and now it appeared as if her boss might soon be joining the Rizzoli family fold. _No wonder Jane is stressed out._

As she sat in her car and searched for her keys in her purse, Maura didn't notice the dark shadow of a man silently approaching the driveway.

When she finally found her keys and grabbed her belongings, the back door behind her was torn open and the bearded man slid into her car. In the blink of an eye, he wrapped his right arm around Maura's neck and held the ice-cold blade of his carpet knife against her face. The blonde froze in fear.

The intruder closed the door and threateningly hissed at Maura from behind. "Start the car. We're going for a ride."


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: **Sorry, life got in the way, and I didn't mean to leave you hanging.. or maybe I did? *chuckle* _

* * *

The next morning, at 8 a.m. sharp, Jane entered the Division One Café in search for her mother and a large cup of coffee. Not necessarily in that order. After several hours of uninterrupted sleep, she felt surprisingly refreshed and eager to put an end to the mysterious killer's scheme. Her long overdue conversation with Maura and the medical examiner's soothing words had certainly gone a long way towards revitalizing her spirits. She was even ready to deal with her mother's ongoing fling with Lieutenant Cavanaugh, but as she was now heading towards the coffee counter and looking around in the café, there was no sign of the older Rizzoli woman. Instead, the counter was manned by Stanley, dressed in his stained green apron and a grumpy pout.

"Hey, Rizzoli," the bald head yelled across the café. "Does your mother have a new job?"

"What?" the detective asked and turned around in confusion.

"She's late again," Stanley complained while carelessly sticking a bagel on a napkin and handing it to the next customer in line. "And I know she doesn't like her job here."

"Gee, what's not to like about it? With such a charming boss…," Jane deadpanned.

Before the café's ill-humored owner could respond, Lieutenant Cavanaugh rushed to the counter, politely apologizing to the other customers for cutting the line, and hurriedly pointed at one of the bagels on display. "Morning, Stanley. Gimme that one, I'm running late."

"Listen to that!" Stanley exclaimed in overstated indignation and scowled at Jane. "He's late, too! If I didn't know better, I'd say there's something going on here."

The brunette almost choked and discreetly coughed into a napkin, whereas the lieutenant ignored her quizzical side glance and kept his cool. He waited for Stanley to hand him his bagel and a coffee, then nodded to Jane. "Come to my office later and update me on your case, Rizzoli."

"Yes, sir," the detective dutifully agreed as her boss hurried away.

When Stanley noticed Jane coughing into her napkin again, he grimaced in disgust. "Hey, don't spread your germs all over my bagels!"

For a moment, Jane seriously considered punching Stanley's face into the plate of bagels in front of him, but before she could fully play through the scenario in her head, Senior Criminalist Susie Chang entered the café and made a beeline for Jane. "Good morning!" the crime lab technician blurted out rather exuberantly and instantly cursed herself for having approached the often grumpy detective without a proper mood check. Consequently, when she was faced with the piercing stare that Stanley had brought to Jane's face, the young criminalist instinctively flinched and searched for the right words.

"I… uh… I was wondering," she opted for polite stuttering. "Have you seen Dr. Isles?"

"Me? No. I thought you had a meeting this morning?" Jane wondered.

"We did," Susie confirmed. "But Dr. Isles didn't show up."

"Ha!" Stanley growled from behind the counter, clearly not as disinterested in their conversation as he had pretended to be. "Is anybody working at all today?"

"I don't see you working either," the detective grunted at the old coot, then turned back to Susie. "Hold on, I'll call her," Jane said and whipped out her cell phone. She speed-dialed Maura's number and let it ring a few times until she was forwarded to the medical examiner's voice-mail. "Hey, it's me. Call me when you get this, okay?"

Without any immediate resolution to the issue at hand, the detective and the criminalist shared an awkward pause. "Well, I'll have a word with Dr. Isles for missing your meeting," Jane finally promised. When she saw Frost emerge from around the corner, she gladly seized her chance to end the uncomfortable get-together with Susie. "I gotta go." Jane grabbed her coffee and signaled her partner to wait.

As the two detectives strolled to the elevator, Frost curiously peeked at her from the side. "You feeling better?" he asked sincerely.

"Yeah," Jane affirmed. "At least I was until I found out that both my mother and Lieutenant Cavanaugh are late this morning. You know what that means…"

"Eww!" Both detectives grimaced at the thought of their boss canoodling with Jane's mother. When the elevator finally arrived and they stepped in, Frost teasingly glanced at the brunette. "Is your family trying to take over BPD?"

"Maybe," Jane chuckled. Her partner had a point. As the elevator slowly made its way up to their floor, Jane remembered that she still didn't know why the medical examiner hadn't showed up for her meeting. "Have you seen Maura this morning?"

"No, but I just came in," Frost said. "She wasn't with you?"

"Nope."

"Well, that's new," her partner joked.

Jane gave him a friendly punch to his side as they left the elevator. "Shut up."

When the two of them entered the homicide squad room, they found Korsak already behind his desk and going through several folders with case files.

"Hey, you got the CSRU report from last night?" Jane asked her former partner.

The sergeant picked one of the folders but then playfully hesitated. "Are you planning on throwing it all over the floor?"

"Funny," Jane said and snatched at the folder. "Gimme that!"

With a fatherly smile, Korsak gave in and handed her the documents. "You look better today."

"Yeah, I'm feeling better, too," the brunette admitted and walked over to her desk. "Let's find that freak, alright?!" She sat down and skimmed through the report with details on the crime scene where Katherine Oliver's body had been found. Even though the photos of the pale, lifeless woman were as harrowing as the previous ones, Jane routinely studied all details without batting an eye. Her confidence was back, her shields were up again. She was ready to step back into the ring and knock the killer out.

As if on cue, the e-mail alert on her computer went off and Jane, Frost, and Korsak looked at one another in determination.

"Bring it on," Jane muttered to herself as she opened her e-mail client.

But when the new message from the killer and the three attached photos appeared on screen, the horrible sight instantly froze the blood in her veins and shattered her newly found confidence. Blank despair wiped all color from her cheeks and turned her as pale as the blonde woman in the photos.

"What is it?" Korsak asked with concern.

Oblivious to her colleagues and everything else around her, Jane jumped to her feet and dashed to the BRIC.

Worried about the sudden mood swing of his partner, Frost frowned and hurried over to Jane's desk. When he saw what filled her screen, he gasped in shock and looked at Korsak in exasperation. "It's Dr. Isles," he whispered and headed straight to the intelligence center.

Korsak instantly dropped his folders and scurried to Jane's desk. Despite his over thirty years of experience, the three photos sent shivers down his spine and made his heart skip a beat.

Just like the previous three victims, Maura was crouched on the floor in that dimly lit corner, her hands zip-cuffed and her blouse stained in blood. She looked tired and pale. Fragile and alone.

Korsak sighed at the familiar _SAVE ME _captioning the pictures and scrolled down to reveal the killer's new message: _THOUGHT YOU COULD USE A LITTLE INCENTIVE, DETECTIVE RIZZOLI. DON__'T DISAPPOINT ME AGAIN! _

With his head hanging low, the sergeant followed his two colleagues to the BRIC.

Inside the intelligence center, Jane was bent over one of the desks frantically typing away on the keyboard and repeatedly looking up at the screens on the wall, which were filled with various maps and surveillance videos from different Boston neighborhoods.

"Jane, what do you need us to do?" Frost asked as calmly as possible.

"I… I don't know," Jane admitted in a cracking voice and slouched her shoulders. "I don't even know what _I__'m _doing…"

Korsak stepped closer and reassuringly put his hand on her shoulder. "Take a deep breath and let's think this through, Jane."

The brunette straightened up and tilted her head back. _Okay, there__'s still time. I can do this, I can do this._ She rubbed her eyes and focused on the digital maps in front of her again. "Well, last night, we tried to find a pattern in the killer's choice of locations. He's moving closer to the city when he picks up his victims, and he's moving away from the city when he dumps their bodies." She zoomed in on Chestnut Hill and its surrounding neighborhoods.

"Dr. Isles was with you last night?" Frost asked?

"Yeah, she left around midnight," Jane nodded and her thoughts drifted back to the night before. _'You're a good detective,'_ she remembered Maura's words. '_People need you. I need you.__'_ As she became painfully aware of the sudden gravity of these words and realized that she might be Maura's only chance now, Jane felt a certain calmness dispel her current woes. The fog in her mind lifted and her detective genes kicked in.

With steady hands, she reached for the keyboard, opened her e-mail inbox, and retrieved the killer's latest message again. Swallowing hard, she opened the gruesome photos of Maura and found her hunch confirmed. "She's still wearing the same clothes as last night, so he must have gotten to her somewhere on her way home. Probably not while she was driving, so, either at a red light or at her house…"

"And since we know her car…," Frost continued her thought and sat down in front of one of the computers.

Jane gratefully patted her partner's back and headed towards the door. "Check all surveillance cameras along the way. And I'll drive to her house to see if she got home at all."

"I'll get a BOLO out on her car," Korsak announced and encouragingly nodded to the brunette. "We'll find her, Jane."

As she darted out of the BRIC and ran towards the elevators, Jane suppressed the images of Maura crouched in her own blood in that dusky corner and instead tried to recall the medical examiner's soothing words again. _'You're a good detective. You're not going to give up.'_ As soon as the elevator arrived, she anxiously slid inside and checked her watch. _I won__'t give up. I promise_.

* * *

When a sharp twinge shot through her abdomen and sent all her pain receptors over the edge, Maura was pulled from the darkness of her semi-conscious sleep and thrust back into the equally frightening darkness of the man's living room. As she instinctively pressed her hands against the source of the pain and felt her own warm blood trickle through her fingers, her mind slowly tried to make sense of her surroundings. With her eyes still adjusting to the dimly lit room, her olfactory sense kicked in first, and the smell of moldy wood and abrasive cleaners in the cracks on the floor triggered random flashes of memories — the coldness of the man's knife pressing against her skin in the car, his alcoholic breath in her neck, the tight grip of his arm around her throat. She remembered how he had given her directions and how he had choked her when she had tried to steer her car down a different road that would have led them past several surveillance cameras. Since it had been a weeknight without much traffic, the man had easily managed to guide her through quiet side streets without running into police patrols or getting stuck amidst other cars. After what had felt like an eternity, they had reached his house, which had turned out to be located exactly within the area that she and Jane had narrowed down just a few hours before. The man had told her to drive her Prius into the garage and muttered something about how the media frenzy had forced him to change cars. The last thing Maura recalled of the night was how he had dragged her out of the car. _He must have knocked me out just like he did with the other women,_ she thought when her mind refused to remember how she had gotten into the house. She reached for her head and subconsciously realized the zip cuffs around her wrists before flinching at the touch of her own fingers on her bruised right temple. _Severe contusion spanning the os zygomaticum and the os sphenoidale, possible mild traumatic brain injury, _the medical examiner habitually diagnosed herself before another sharp pain in her stomach served as a reminder that her bruised temple was the least of her problems.

As she had finally adjusted to the dim candle light, Maura squinted and looked up towards the wooden table a few feet away from her — right into the bloodshot eyes of her kidnapper. Though the man had pulled his baseball cap deep into his face and the darkness made it difficult to see his features, the glow from his laptop's screen in front of his face eerily highlighted his eyes as he was thoroughly studying the blonde's every move.

The sudden sight of his piercing stare and the rush of adrenaline surging through her veins heightened Maura's senses and brought back her missing memories. Of how he had hovered above her just an hour ago with the same lunatic look in his eyes. Of how he had pinned her down and let his knife slide through her flesh. Of how he had taken those three pictures of her just before she had blacked out. And of how she had tried to send a secret message to Jane in those photos.

_Would Jane even notice it?_ The thought of her best friend and of her reaction to these new developments filled Maura's heart with sadness. Just when the detective seemed to have recovered from her personal crisis, this latest twist of events might send her spiraling right back down into the abyss. _I have to help Jane. I can__'t let him break her. _

"Whom did you lose?" she asked weakly. It was a guess, something she would avoid at all cost under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances, and given his teary eyes and his obsession with getting his victims saved, it was the only shot she had. "Someone you loved?"

Despite the darkness, Maura noticed the man wince at her last words. She was on to something. "Is this how she died?" she tried again. "Did she bleed out?"

"Stop it!" the man commanded and agitatedly jumped to his feet. "You don't know anything about her."

"Then why don't you tell me about her?" the medical examiner suggested as discreetly as possible.

"Because that's not why you're here. I don't need someone to talk," he declared while pacing back and forth.

"And what exactly do you need?" the blonde tried to engage him. "You have to tell us what—"

"No!" the man exclaimed and squatted down in front of Maura. "You already have all the information you need!"

Barely able to suppress her tears and the pain, Maura tried to grasp the meaning behind her kidnapper's obscure words. "You killed three women to—"

"I did not!" he yelled as his rage grew stronger inside. "I did not kill these women! _You _let them die! And that's exactly the problem — you just don't listen! You don't pay enough attention!"

"Is this what happened?" Maura dug deeper. "She died because someone didn't pay attention?"

"See? Now you're listening," the man explained with a frightening tranquility filling his voice while his eyes were still blazing with madness. "But your detective friend is not."

"Because you're not giving her a fair chance," the medical examiner begged and tried to get a closer look at the bearded man in front of her.

"I'm giving her a fair reason here to pay more attention," he snorted and pulled Maura's hands away from her bleeding wound. When the blonde quietly moaned and instinctively attempted again to stop the bleeding, he held her hands back with his own tattooed arms and watched the blood stain on her blouse grow larger. "And you'd better hope she starts to listen."

With that, he pushed her away and marched to the other end of the living room. He reached for a bottle of beer on the window frame and leaned back, his mind consumed by his thoughts of Darlene and oblivious to the woman in the opposite corner.

Feeling her strength seep away with every drop of blood leaving her body, Maura desperately tried to apply pressure to her wound to slow down the bleeding, but she knew it was only a matter of time. She was already shivering from the lack of blood flow to her skin and her heart was racing as a result of her neural reflexes' response to the acute loss of circulating volume in her body. She could afford to lose about one fifth of her normal amount of blood before her body would enter into a state of hypovolemic shock and slowly begin to shut down. _I must stay awake until he takes his next pictures,_ she reminded herself. _Just a few more hours. I have to stay awake. _Without the second set of photos, her message to Jane would be lost and her best friend would never find her in time. _I can__'t do this to Jane. I have to stay awake… I have to… stay awake… _And as Maura tried to cling on to her thoughts, her eyes slowly fell shut.


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N:** We better hurry up, eh? Thanks for still following along!_

* * *

Around the same time, Jane got out of her car in front of Maura's upscale Beacon Hill home and worriedly looked around in the driveway. It hadn't rained in two days, so her chances of finding fresh tracks were virtually non-existent. Nonetheless, she thoroughly checked every corner of the pathway, every blind spot, every patch of grass where someone might have left foot prints while hiding in the dark. In vain. There were no signs of any struggle, no keys dropped down in the dirt, no branches broken off the shrubs. Nothing.

_Why didn__'t I prevent this? I should have seen this coming,_ Jane cursed herself as she walked to the front door. _He had my name, he was losing patience, he wanted my attention. Damn it, I should have known!_

Even though the detective knew there probably wouldn't be any fingerprints that could accidentally be destroyed, she put on one of her nitrile gloves before turning the knob. When she found it locked, she fished her spare key out of her pocket and entered Maura's house.

The hallway seemed untouched and looked meticulously clean as always. The great room lay quiet, all lights were off. But as Jane took in the familiar scent of her friend's home and felt a wave of tears well up inside at the thought of Maura's current turmoil, a sudden rumbling from the kitchen jolted her from her worries. Instinctively, she pulled her gun and carefully peeked around the corner only to find Bass slowly crawling about on the floor next to the kitchen counter. Jane sighed in relief and sadly knelt down to caress the giant tortoise's head.

When she noticed his empty feeding bowl, she knew for sure that Maura hadn't made it into her house the night before. Being quite familiar with the tortoise's culinary preferences, Jane headed for the fridge and retrieved some lettuce leaves and his beloved British strawberries.

"I know you don't like me, buddy, but you gotta deal with me today," she encouraged him and wiped a tear from her eye when Bass appreciatively devoured a strawberry out of her hand.

As Jane watched the tortoise nibble on the lettuce leaves, she whipped out her cell phone and called her partner at BPD.

"Frost, it's me. I'm at her house but it looks like she hasn't been inside at all. And there's nothing useful in the driveway either." She paused to let the detective at the other end of the line bring her up to speed. Moments later, she ended the conversation with a quick "I'll call you from the car" and gave Bass another soft pat on his head.

"You watch the house, alright? Maura will be back soon, I promise."

_There__'s still time,_ she thought and headed towards the back door. _I have to find her. I have to find her. For God__'s sake, why did I let this happen?_

As she left the house, Jane was so consumed by her thoughts and her frantic attempts to identify the missing piece of the puzzle that she didn't even notice her mother stepping out of the guest house at the very same moment.

"Jane? What are you doing here?" Angela asked, surprised by her daughter's unscheduled presence. When the brunette absentmindedly walked on, the Rizzoli matriarch frowned and called after the detective. "Jane?!"

Her mother's nagging voice ripped her out of her thoughts and she spun around. "What?!"

Caught off-guard by Jane's unusually bad mood, Angela flinched back and worriedly studied her daughter's stern features. "What is going on?"

"Nothing," the detective grunted and marched to her car.

"Uh, could you at least give me a ride to work?" the older Rizzoli woman sheepishly asked.

"No, I can't!"

"But…"

And finally, despite her best efforts to keep her cool, Jane lost control over all the woes and unthinkable thoughts that she had been suppressing ever since she had received those harrowing photos of Maura in the morning. She needed to let off steam. She needed to yell. And so she did.

"You wanna know why I can't give you a ride? Because Maura has been kidnapped last night, and now she's bleeding to death in a goddamn house somewhere in this goddamn city, and I can't fucking find her!" Her voice cracking, Jane scowled at her mother, whose eyes widened in shock at the news. "And you know what else? If you had been home last night instead of shagging my boss, none of this would've happened! So, why don't you call your lieutenant and ask _him_ to give you a ride?!"

"Jane…," the Rizzoli matriarch weakly whispered as tears began to well up in her eyes.

"Just leave me alone," Jane hissed and turned away. "I gotta find Maura."

Left standing all alone outside of the guest house, Angela steadied herself on the door and helplessly watched her daughter pull away.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Jane had maneuvered her sedan through the late morning traffic along Beacon Street and stopped at the curb just a few blocks away from Fenway Park, where a public surveillance camera had captured Maura's blue Prius around 1 a.m. the night before.

Upon carefully checking the material from all the surveillance cameras along the route that Maura usually took on her way back home from Jane's apartment, Frost had spotted her car at several intersections and thus been able to establish a rough time frame for the medical examiner's abduction. He and Korsak had then begun to go through approximately thirty minutes of fast-forwarded recordings per camera from dozens of other surveillance points scattered across the neighborhoods in an attempt to locate Maura's car and trace the route she and her kidnapper had taken on their way to his still unidentified hiding place. But even though the emptiness of most streets around that time of the night allowed them to speed up the process, it didn't necessarily make it any easier to find the blue Prius. The killer obviously knew the area like the back of his hand and skillfully evaded the digital eyes trying to follow his every move.

_Where the hell are you, Maura? _Jane wondered as she reached for her tablet computer on the passenger seat and opened a city map of Boston with various little circles marking the different crime scenes as well as her own current location. At the sight of the dense cluster of blocks and streets forming the radius within which the killer could be hiding, Jane swallowed hard and pushed her worries back to her mind. _There__'s gotta be a way to narrow it down. There must be a reason for his pattern. What am I missing?_

With a heavy heart, the brunette speed-dialed her partner's number on her phone and anxiously checked her watch. When Frost picked up and greeted her with his ever-present optimism, she forced herself to breathe in to steady her own voice. "It's me. I'm near Kenmore. Tell me you've found something else."

The brief moment of silence at the other end of the line was as heartbreaking as any negative answer her partner could have given her. "We're still looking…," Frost reluctantly said. "But… I think we lost the car."

Now, it was Jane's turn to fall silent. Her hopes gradually fading away, she closed her eyes and cocked back her head. _Please, just one clue__… One tiny hint that'll lead us to her… There's gotta be something…_

"Jane? You still there?" the young detective wondered.

After another deep breath and the thought of Maura telling her not to give up, Jane finally mustered enough strength to fight against her despair and for her best friend. "Yeah, I'm here," she said and glanced at the map on her tablet computer. "I'm gonna check the neighborhoods again where we found the bodies… drive around a bit. Maybe we've missed something."

"You sure you don't want to come back?" Frost asked as he worried about Jane being all by herself at the time of the next e-mail from the killer.

"I can't sit around and do nothing," the brunette lamented. "I know it's probably pointless but…"

"I would do the same, Jane," her partner admitted. "Korsak and I will finish going through the surveillance material, and the crime lab is working on the evidence from last night as we speak. I'll call you as soon as we find something."

"Okay… thanks, Frost," Jane sighed and hung up, then merged back into traffic and headed south towards the scene where their first victim had been found.

_Why does he want his victims to be saved? _she wondered as her car crawled through the dense traffic on this chilly day in the fall. _What happened to him? Whom did he lose? What was it that triggered his obsession?_

The pile of questions running through Jane's mind had grown many times over when she finally reached the site near Dorchester Park and Cedar Grove Cemetery where the body of Karen Newman had been found. She parked her sedan in a quiet lot near Neponset River, reached for her tablet computer, and checked the map of Boston once more. _Where the hell is he hiding? _Without any hard facts to rely on, the detective let her fingers aimlessly wander over the display and zoomed in and out of various neighborhoods, but no matter how hard she stared at the display or how frantically she switched back and forth between all the different sites, the map still refused to magically reveal the killer's location. And with every passing minute, those haunting words that she had successfully pushed to the back of her mind grew stronger and louder again. _Save me. Save me. Save me._ But now it wasn't just any voice filling her head — it was that of Maura.

After several minutes, Jane closed the digital map in frustration and rested her head on the steering wheel. _What am I gonna do? How do I stop him? I have to stop him!_ She took a deep breath and leaned back again, then pensively gazed at the tablet's display. Hesitatingly, her fingers found the icon for her e-mail client, and she opened her inbox with the last message from the killer. At the sight of the gruesome pictures, the detective instinctively averted her eyes and swallowed hard, but eventually the thought of Maura counting on her gave Jane the strength to regain her composure and hit _REPLY_.

Even though she doubted that her e-mail would achieve anything, Jane was determined to spare no effort to save her friend. As she typed her message and rephrased it again and again, she wished she had Maura's eloquence so that she could simply talk the killer out of his insane scheme by the mere power of her words. Just like Maura sometimes managed to talk her out of her coffee addiction — at least temporarily.

When the detective had finally decided on her choice of words, she took another contemplative breath and then hit _SEND_.

For a few moments, Jane just sat in her sedan and pondered what to do, where to drive, whom to call. But when the lack of answers and her current inability to do anything but wait only increased her feelings of powerlessness and failure, she hastily staggered out of her car and gasped for fresh air. And as she stood all by herself in the chilly October winds and overlooked the deserted banks of the river nearby, all she could do was wonder whether she would ever see her best friend again.

_Where are you, Maura?_


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N: **Happy inappropriate Wednesday! Though I find it anything but inappropriate that R&I is on TV tonight (old episode, but still).. How much longer until January, goshdarnit?! (P.S.: Before you all head over to Google Maps - the address in this chapter isn't real.. didn't want to get anybody in trouble. ;-))_

* * *

About five miles away from the detective, Maura sat crouched in the dusky corner of the man's living room with her eyes closed and her head resting against the wall behind her. The powerful pull of another syncopal attack was tugging at her, trying to lure her back into the dark, and sucking the last ounces of strength out of her body. And while she could barely feel her toes and fingertips any longer, her heart was still thumping like mad as if trying to compete with the rhythmic pounding in her head.

Just when the medical examiner threatened to slip away again, a sudden thud pulled her mind back into the decaying living room of the man's house. She squinted through heavy lids and tried to detect the man. For a few seconds, her tired eyes only caught blurry lines and shadows, but then she spotted her kidnapper at the other end of the room next to a chair at the wall. She wondered what he was doing and whether the loud noise had been him jumping down from that chair. And if yes, what had made him climb the chair in the first place? There seemed to be a small opening in the wall above the man's head, but given the distance between the two corners of the room and her currently rather blurry vision, Maura was unable to recognize any details. Instead, she tried to determine how long she had been dozing and how much blood she had already lost, but with all the shutters down, it was impossible to say what time of day it was or how much of her warm blood had already seeped onto the floor.

_Oh no, what if he has already taken his next pictures while I was out?_ she suddenly wondered and panic infested every cell of her body. She needed to be awake for those photos or her previous efforts would have been in vain.

Before her worries could consume her spirits, the man came back to his desk and rummaged through his belongings lying scattered around in the flickering candle light. When Maura heard the familiar beeping and rattling of his camera, a tiny glimmer of hope sparked in her mind. Maybe it wasn't too late after all.

And indeed, when the man had set up his gear, he approached her dark corner and knelt down to take his next series of pictures, his eyes momentarily focused on the camera's display. As inconspicuously as possible, Maura brought her fingers into position and silently prayed that he would neither notice what she was doing nor discard any of his pictures. If part of her message got lost, Jane wouldn't be able to decipher it at all. At the thought of the detective, a wave of sadness washed over Maura's heart and she wondered what her friend might be doing right now. She knew Jane wouldn't leave any stone unturned, but given the number of houses within the radius they had identified the night before, her chances of finding the killer's hiding spot in time and without any additional clues were minimal at best. Habitually, the medical examiner tried to calculate the exact probability using the number of inhabitants and their demographic composition, but the throbbing in her head made any elaborate mental activity impossible. Besides, a much more important task required her full attention.

Thus, as soon as the man in front of her raised his camera to take another picture, Maura focused her remaining willpower and delivered the next part of her message. When the sudden bright light of the camera's flash sent another sharp pain through her head and she almost forgot the last part of her message, it took the blonde whatever strength was left in her bleeding body to quickly bring her fingers into the correct position before the man released the shutter again. _Please, don__'t take another picture now! Just these two…,_ she silently begged and cried in relief when the man got up and scuffled back to his desk without taking any more photos.

Exhausted by the stress imposed on her mind and body, Maura drifted back into a semi-conscious state until she suddenly felt the man hover directly in front of her. She opened her eyes again and found him studying her bruised face in curiosity.

"So, you only got one kidney, huh?" he asked sardonically and reached for her bleeding abdomen. "Which one is missing?" When the blonde would not or could not answer, he sneered and returned to his computer. "Your detective friend wants to trade herself in for you. Looks like she still doesn't understand the rules."

"She'll find you," Maura whispered weakly before her eyes fell shut and darkness clouded her mind. _Even if she won__'t find me in time._

* * *

Two seemingly eternal hours had passed when the e-mail alert of Jane's tablet computer on her passenger seat rang out again. After she had sent her message to the killer, begged him to take her instead of Maura, and informed him of her friend's kidney condition that might cut short the time to save her, Jane had spent the early afternoon visiting all of their crime scenes, talking to neighbors again, and attempting to further narrow down the radius around the killer's hiding spot by testing herself how long it would take to get from A to B to C and back. But the only tangible result had been more frustration and anxiety. Expecting the worst now, she stopped her sedan at the curb, reached for her tablet, and opened her e-mail client. At the sight of the two new photos of Maura curled up in that dusky corner, her body pale and in pain, Jane choked hard and barely managed to keep her frenzied thoughts under control. _She__'s still alive. It's not too late. There's still time. Just hang on, Maura. Hang on!_

As the detective scrolled down and read the man's response to her plea, she instantly found her worries confirmed that her bargaining attempts would be in vain. She could almost hear the killer's snort of derision together with the bold-faced _TICK-TOCK_ below the photos. At the bottom of his message, he had added just one more line: _I DON__'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FRIEND'S CONDITION — FIND HER AND SAVE HER! THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO FIX YOUR MISTAKE!_

For a moment, Jane's heart and mind were drowned under a wave of guilt triggered by the killer's harsh words. _If Maura dies, it__'ll be my fault. I should've seen this coming. Why didn't I just take a week off when I had the chance? Why did I have to give him my name? It's all my fault. I made a mistake and— _Suddenly, an idea thrust itself forward through all the worries jamming Jane's head, and the detective hastily grabbed her cell phone. She speed-dialed Frost's number and barely gave him enough time to answer the call.

"Frost, check our databases to see if there have been any female stabbing victims in the last weeks. I got another e-mail, and he's talking about 'fixing our mistake.' I think someone close to him got stabbed and he blames us for her death. And now, he wants us to fix it." With adrenaline and a tickling sensation of hope rushing through her veins, Jane started her car and agitatedly maneuvered it through the dense afternoon traffic. "Look up hospital records or litigation files — whatever you can find," she advised her partner on the other end of the line. "I'll be right there."

_Just don__'t give up, Maura! We'll find you._

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Jane parked her sedan in front of BPD Headquarters, jumped out of the car, and dashed upstairs. Without any time for politeness, she shouldered her way through a bunch of cops chatting in the hallway and breathlessly arrived at the BRIC, where Frost and Korsak were still huddled over their computers and desperately trying to track down the killer. When Jane barged into the intelligence center and almost tripped over a chair in her hurry, her two colleagues turned around and their gloomy faces instantly gave away the state of their investigation.

"We've spotted Dr. Isles' car at another intersection in Jamaica Plain," Korsak greeted her. "But it's right in the middle between our three crime scenes, and we don't know if they went left or right from there. All we know is they went south. I'm having some officers go through the surveillance material from down there, but it doesn't look promising. I'm sorry, Jane."

Clinging to the faint feeling of hope that had sparked up inside of her just minutes ago, Jane bit her lip and looked at Frost in expectation.

"I've checked for any felonies involving stabbing victims in the last six months," her partner explained. "Tried to narrow it down to neighborhoods in the south and west of Boston, but no useful matches so far."

"Well, then just extend your search," Jane agitatedly demanded as she felt her last glimmers of hope fade away again.

"We're already going through all kinds of case files… burglaries, domestic violence, accidents…," Frost said. "We can look into other parts of the city and also check older records, but it takes time…"

"We don't have time!" Jane exclaimed and nervously rubbed her scarred hands. "I'm not a doctor, but I don't think it's helping that Maura only has one kidney left."

"Hey, Rizzoli," Lieutenant Cavanaugh suddenly called out for her from the doors to the BRIC. "Into my office!"

"Sir, we're in the middle of—" the brunette tried to protest.

"Now!" her boss demanded.

Jane barely stopped herself from cursing out loud and followed the lieutenant into his office next door, wondering how long he had been watching them. "If this is about my mother, we—"

"Sit down," Cavanaugh ordered and ignored her impatient glare as she took a seat. He slid onto a chair next to Jane and calmly looked at the detective. "I want you to _think_, Rizzoli. Find out where your guy is hiding with Dr. Isles and—"

"But that's what we've been trying to do before you dragged me in here!" Jane complained.

"No, I've been watching you. You haven't been thinking clearly," the lieutenant pointed out. "I know she's your friend and it's hard, but I want you to stay calm and focused! Can you do that?"

The detective wearily shrugged. "We're running out of time…"

"Yes, and that's exactly why I need you at your best, Rizzoli! Now, you go back in there and you'll find that jerk, alright?!"

Jane nodded and hesitatingly got up.

"Keep me informed," her boss said and then signaled her to leave.

On her way out of his office, Jane took a deep breath and tried to hold on to Cavanaugh's words. _Just stay calm. Focus. Think._ When a certain clarity put her mind at ease, she returned to the BRIC, where she found Korsak and Frost studying a map of Boston next to the last e-mails from the killer on one of the flat screens on the wall. For a split second, Jane felt bile rise up in her throat at the sight of the enlarged photos of Maura in turmoil, but suddenly, the arrangement of all these pictures on one large screen in front of her revealed what had been hidden right under her nose all along. Jane almost smiled as she remembered Maura's explanation that a change in perspective would often reveal new information. The medical examiner had been right after all.

"Look at her hands!" she exclaimed as she dashed to the front of the room. "She's signaling numbers," Jane explained and pointed at Maura's fingers.

Frost and Korsak squinted at the screen, and suddenly their eyes widened as realization hit them. The young detective hurried to his desk and quickly brought all pictures into their order of arrival, whereas the older sergeant grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and began to scribble. "Zero-two-one-three-two… uh, what's the next one?" Korsak asked and pointed at Maura's flat hand in the third photo.

"Maybe a break," Jane suggested and glanced over her former partner's shoulder.

"Okay, and the rest is three-four-three," he finished and held up the piece of paper for everyone to see.

"That's a zip code!" Jane burst out. "02132 — that's uh…"

"West Roxbury," Frost announced from behind his computer.

"And 343 could be a street number…," Korsak mused.

"Yeah," Jane nodded. "Frost, can you—"

"Check the map for possible locations? Already on it!" her partner declared and hammered away on his keyboard.

A detailed street map of Boston popped up on the main screen, and with a few mouse clicks, Frost zoomed in on West Roxbury. He continued to type and browse through various street listings.

"Okay, seems like there are six streets in that area with numbers in the 300s," Frost read from his screen. "There's Amherst Avenue, Dalton Road, Dorchester Street, Langley Street, Stratford Street, and Winchester Avenue."

Jane impatiently tapped her foot. "What do we know about these addresses? Who's registered there? Come on, give me something!"

"Let's see, the first one is a bakery," her partner read from his screen, then focused on the data and mumbled to himself. Suddenly, he straightened up, seemingly psyched about his findings. "Wait… This one on Stratford Street… It's owned by a John Christle, who inherited it from his wife, Darlene Christle." A few more keystrokes later, a new window popped up on the screen showing the photo of a blonde woman in her thirties. With eyes wide open, Frost turned towards Jane and Korsak. "Ten months ago, she got stabbed and bled to death in a burglary gone wrong."

There was no need for further words. The three of them instantly knew that they had found the right address.

And as they stormed out of the BRIC, Jane wished with all her heart that it wasn't too late. _Please, hold on, Maura. Just a little longer!_

* * *

As the sun was beginning to set outside, the flickering candle on the desk in the man's living room was slowly but surely dying — and so was Maura in the dark corner just a few feet away. Her breathing had become flat and slow, and every additional drop of blood leaving her body stole another glimmer of hope from her heart. At least, the numbness spreading through her limbs had dulled the pain from her wounds, and a feeling of ease and acceptance had taken its place.

And as she lay on the floor with her hands soaked in her own blood, her thoughts slowly drifted off to Jane, Frost, and Korsak. She didn't blame them for not finding her in time. She knew they had tried everything — Jane had even offered to take Maura's place to save her. But apparently, something had gone wrong. _Maybe he switched or deleted some of the photos after all. Or maybe I sent the wrong numbers. West Roxbury__… that's 02132… or maybe it is 02321…?_

The thought of not being rescued in time and of dying alone in the killer's lair inevitably led the medical examiner's mind back to the morgue at BPD, and she wondered who would do her autopsy. _Oh, please, not that knucklehead Doctor Pike__… or Popov, the booze bag!_ And would Jane attend her autopsy? Would she even go down to the morgue ever again? _What if she can__'t find closure and becomes obsessed with my death… as obsessed as this man?_ The notion of the strong detective losing her faith seemed even scarier than her own death. _I can__'t do this to her. I have to help her stop this man. Somehow…_

Using the last of her strength, Maura raised her head and tried to locate the man. He wasn't at his desk, and the room seemed even darker than before. Moments later, she realized why when she spotted him at the cupboard trying to light a new candle.

"You won't bring her back…," Maura whispered in a raspy voice.

The man slowly turned around and squinted at the blonde in the corner.

"She's gone… and… you won't change that," she declared. "No matter what you do…"

"Shut up!" the man growled and angrily struck another match to light the candle.

"You can't save her…," Maura insisted.

Clutching the burning candle until his knuckles turned white, the man took three steps towards his captive and crouched down in front of her. "I said shut up!"

Maura knew this was her one and only chance to get from the killer what they hadn't been able to get before. Gathering every ounce of willpower still left in her body, she launched her arms forward and jabbed her fingernails into the hairy skin of the man's face to secure a sample of his DNA. _Please, please, let them find it during my autopsy!_

Surprised by her unexpected attack, the man moaned in pain and dropped his candle. The flame instantly set fire to the small streams of acid cleaner that had been gathering on the floor since his repeated scrubbing of the wooden planks. In a chain reaction, a maze of tiny fiery lines on the floor forced its way towards the wooden table, and the cupboard, and the walls.

"No, no, no, no, no!" the man yelled in agitation and furiously hurled Maura to the ground. "This is not how it's supposed to happen!"

Terrified, his eyes darted from the blonde's motionless body to every other corner of the room in an attempt to find something that could stop the fire. But given the sparse furnishing, there were neither blankets nor watering cans nor any other items he could have used.

"No, no, not like this!" he cried out loud but then suddenly froze at a faint familiar sound of sirens from outside. "You hear that?" he wondered, though it wasn't quite clear whom he was talking to. "They're coming!"

His faced seized with manic excitement, the man waited a few more seconds to let the sirens grow louder until he was convinced that they were really approaching his house. "They're coming," he sighed again, then grabbed his laptop and cast one last glance at the woman on the wooden floor while the fiery lines kept dancing around her body. "I knew it would work," he announced before rushing to the back door and disappearing in the dusk outside.

And as Maura lay prone on the floor, she could have sworn that somewhere out there, seemingly far away, the sounds of police sirens were filling the air. _Maybe they__'ve found him after all, _she wondered and let out one last breath of relief before finally giving in to the dark.

_I__'m just so tired. I'm sorry, Jane. I'm really sorry. _


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N: **Should I have added a warning in the first chapter that this story contains a major character death?_

_What..? Wait! No! Don't throw stuff at me.. I'm kidding..maybe.. a little.. well.. _

* * *

With blue lights flashing and sirens wailing, several police cars and two unmarked sedans sped through an otherwise quiet residential area in West Roxbury and came to an abrupt standstill in front of the rather unassuming detached house at 343 Stratford Street. The doors of the cars flew open and Jane, Frost, and Korsak as well as half a dozen backup officers jumped out of their vehicles and circled the house, their guns drawn and their bodies protected by bulletproof vests.

At the forefront of the squad, Jane and Frost stormed the property's front yard, while Korsak remained a few steps behind to coordinate the rest of the team. When the two detectives reached the wooden porch, their faces highly alert and filled with determination, they suddenly paused in unison.

"You smell that?" the brunette frowned at her partner.

"Yeah," Frost nodded. Without losing valuable time, he took two steps backwards, then launched towards the front door and busted it open.

Billows of smoke instantly escaped from the house as the smell of burning acids lingered in the air. Clutching their guns, ready to shoot at whoever might be lurking inside, Jane and Frost stepped into the house's claustrophobic entrance area and routinely backed each other while cautiously advancing into the adjacent rooms. Two of the other squad members controlled the narrow strips of grass to the left and right of the house, while a third officer stood guard at the door.

Inside, Frost peeked into the deserted kitchen to his left. "Clear," he announced before heading towards the source of the fire. With well-rehearsed moves, he and Jane slid into the smoke-filled living room, where the flames had begun to devour the furniture and cast an interplay of dancing lights and shadows at the walls.

Suddenly, Frost froze as he spotted the motionless body at the far end of the room. "Jane…," he gasped and pointed towards the corner.

At the sight of Maura on the floor surrounded by voracious flames, Jane's heart skipped several beats and she hurried towards the blonde. "Maura?!"

While Frost and the rest of the squad checked the other rooms, Jane anxiously reached for Maura's pulse. When she felt the faint rhythm of the medical examiner's beating heart, her panic instantly gave way to firm determination to get Maura out safe and alive. _Just keep breathing, Maura. Keep breathing._ Nervously glancing at the flames around them, the detective carefully let her hand wander over the blonde's bleeding abdomen and pressed it onto the wound to stop the still steady flow of blood trickling out of her friend's body.

Seconds later, Frost darted back into the living room and worriedly noticed Jane cradling Maura's body as she was trying to protect her from the flames. "Is she…?"

"She's alive," Jane sighed. "Where is that damn ambulance?"

"They're on their way," he replied and rushed to the two women, took off his jacket, and smothered the flames closest to Maura.

"We need to get her out of here," Jane urged.

Frost eagerly knelt down next to Maura, carefully slid his arms under her body, and lifted her up. With Jane right at his side, never letting her friend out of sight, he carried the blonde out of the house and towards the driveway, where an ambulance had just arrived.

Two EMTs jumped out and immediately helped Frost with Maura still on his arms inside the vehicle's back, while Jane quietly watched from a few feet away. Her partner gently laid the blonde onto the gurney and climbed back outside to give the EMTs sufficient space to do their job.

Still shaken by their last-minute rescue efforts, the young detective stumbled towards Jane. Together, they observed in silence how the EMTs slid an oxygen mask over Maura's pale face, covered her bleeding wound with a patch of gauze, and removed the zip cuffs from her blood-smeared hands before putting her on an IV and closely monitoring her vital signs.

As Jane and Frost stood rooted to the ground, hoping for a sign of life from their friend in the ambulance, neither of them noticed or cared about the flurry of activity unfolding around the burning house — cops sealing off the area, curious neighbors gathering nearby, fire trucks pushing their way through the chaos.

Agitatedly, Korsak joined his two colleagues and comfortingly stroked Jane's back upon noticing the EMTs still fighting for Maura's life in the ambulance.

"Looks like he got away," the sergeant reluctantly admitted. "As soon as we have the flames under control, CSRU will work the scene. We'll find that sicko, Jane."

"Uh huh…," Jane nodded even though none of Korsak's words had really registered with her mind. Her eyes and thoughts were fully fixated on her still unconscious friend in the ambulance. _Just give me a sign, Maura. Just open your eyes__…_

* * *

More than two hours after Maura's rescue, Jane was still nervously pacing the lounge next to the emergency room, waiting for news from the doctors. Her friend's condition had been critical during the ride to the hospital, but a nurse had assured Jane that they'd do their best. And since Korsak had stayed at the scene in West Roxbury and Frost was currently roaming the hospital hallways on a mission to find some decent coffee, Jane was left by herself, with ashen soot particles still covering her clothes, and couldn't do anything but wait. Yet again. _If it takes longer, that__'s good, isn't it? Short means they couldn't do anything; long means they're fixing her. Right?_ She anxiously glanced at the clock above the doors to the ER that kept ticking in utter indifference. _Geez, stop freaking out! We__'ve saved her. Of course, she'll be fine. _

Just when Jane's thoughts threatened to spin out of control, Frost reappeared at the far end of the hallway. He was balancing two styrofoam cups of coffee in one hand and holding his cell phone to his ear with the other. A few steps later, he ended the call with a quick "okay, thanks" and worriedly looked at Jane. "Still no word?"

Jane just shook her head.

Knowing perfectly well that his partner would welcome any distraction at this point, Frost handed her one of the cups, then sat down on a couch in the waiting area and signaled Jane to join him. With an impatient sigh, the brunette plopped down next to him and ran her fingers through her curly hair before sipping her coffee.

"Eww," Jane grimaced and almost spat out the lukewarm brew. "Is this coffee or a sneaky plot to keep their gastroenterologists busy?"

"Sorry, I only found this one vending machine," Frost apologized and pulled his small tablet PC out of his grime-stained jacket. "Korsak said he got a BOLO out for John Christle, and every available unit is searching the West Roxbury neighborhood. They also found Dr. Isles' car in the garage, and CSRU just got started in the house."

"What about that stolen car?" Jane asked.

"Wasn't there," Frost explained. "Maybe the guy dumped it when it was all over the news on TV. That's why he had to take Dr. Isles' car." The young detective opened the files with the Christles' profiles on his tablet. "So, Darlene Christle, the woman who died in that house ten months ago — she and her husband apparently had some issues, and while she was bleeding to death the night of the burglary, he was enjoying himself banging his mistress at his other apartment in town."

Jane arched her eyebrows in disgust. "Lovely…"

"Police received a phone call from an unidentified man that night stuttering something about a woman bleeding to death," Frost read from his display. "But the caller didn't provide enough details and called from a pay phone a few blocks away from Stratford Street. The team on the case thought it could've been the husband, but his alibi checked out. He and his lover had been caught on a public surveillance camera—"

"Maybe a kill-for-hire scheme? Wouldn't be the first time someone tries this…," Jane suggested.

"That's what they thought, too, but there wasn't enough evidence. Darlene Christle had been stabbed with her own kitchen knife, and everything looked like she had interrupted a regular burglar," Frost sighed. "So, eventually, John Christle got released and inherited the house, but he also kept his apartment. We've already sent a unit there, but the place has been deserted for at least a week."

"Yeah, because he's been busy killing off women in that house…," the brunette grunted and peeked at the files on her partner's display.

"But why?" Frost wondered.

"Maybe he's on some sort of guilt trip," Jane mused. "Thinks he can recreate the events of the night and change the outcome?"

Before they could dig deeper, a surgeon in blue scrubs emerged from the doors to the ER and greeted them with a comforting smile.

Jane jumped to her feet and subconsciously held her breath. "How is she?"

"She's stable," the doctor assured her. "She's lost a lot of blood from the subdermal laceration, but no vital organs were cut. She also has a concussion and minor bruises, but there won't be any permanent injuries."

Both detectives let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"However, after what she's been through, there may be certain repercussions," the doctor quickly added.

"I know," Jane sadly bit her lip as she was reminded of her own mental scars from her tedious fights against Charles Hoyt. "Can we see her?"

"Yes, though she'll probably be sleeping. Come with me!" The doctor turned around and headed towards an adjacent ward. Jane was about to follow him, when Frost held her back.

"Uh, Jane, how about you go check on Maura, and I'll get in touch with Korsak again?" he suggested.

"Okay. Thanks, Frost," Jane nodded and a hint of unbridled anger flashed over her face. "Don't let that bastard get away!"

The two detectives exchanged supportive looks before parting into opposite directions.

Just a few steps down the hall, Jane and the doctor reached their destination. The brunette nervously rubbed her scarred hands and looked through the glass window into Maura's room. Except for a night lamp above the bed, the room was barely lit. The blonde lay on her side, eyes closed and breathing calmly, an IV feeding her body with the fluids it so urgently needed. With the exception of her right temple, which had taken on various shades of purple and blue, Maura still looked as pale as a ghost.

For a moment, Jane let her eyes rest on her sleeping friend. At the end of a long, hard day at BPD — even a particularly exhausting one like today —, the presence of the medical examiner would usually make her feel more at ease, but right now, the sight of Maura's fragile figure only heightened her own vulnerability.

When the doctor noticed the detective's hesitation, he gently put his hand on her arm. "She'll be fine. But if you'd like to stay overnight, I'll let the nurse know."

"Yes, I'll stay," Jane declared. "We'll also place a uniform outside her room. Whoever did this is still out there, and we just don't want to take any risk."

"No problem, Detective. Just let me know if you need anything else, okay?"

"Thank you."

After the doctor had disappeared to attend to his other patients, Jane quietly snuck into Maura's room. She tiptoed to the chair next to her bed, grabbed two spare pillows from a gurney at the wall, and sank down with a sigh.

At least for a little while, the ruthless rhythm of the past few days had slowed down, and as she just sat there and watched Maura sleep, the waves of adrenaline still surging through Jane's veins finally began to subside. _She__'s fine, she's fine. Everything's gonna be okay,_ she repeated to herself and reached for Maura's hand as if feeling the blonde's physical presence would give more emphasis to the soothing mantra running through her mind. _Just relax and breathe. _

When she felt the other woman's fingers twitch in her hand, Jane looked up and found Maura awake, squinting at her from tired eyes.

"Hey," Jane whispered.

"You look terrible," Maura noted, always more concerned with the well-being of those around her than with her own.

Jane couldn't help but chuckle in relief. "Yeah, have a look at yourself," she retorted with a warm smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Like someone's playing bongos on my prefrontal lobes," Maura whimpered.

"Sorry," Jane sympathetically studied the blonde's face and softly brushed her arm. "We got your message in the photos. That was brilliant, Maura."

"I thought so, too," Maura agreed and tried to crack a smile.

The detective carefully wiped a strand of hair from the medical examiner's face as if she could thereby make her headache go away. "Sometimes, I love that smart brain of yours."

Though she could barely keep her eyes open, Maura still needed to get one question off her chest. "Did you get him?"

"Not yet," Jane hung her head, wishing she had a different answer for her friend. "He set the house on fire and escaped through the back before we even got in. He's still at large, but every cop out there is looking for him."

Despite Maura's best attempts to hide the fear crawling up her spine, Jane instantly sensed what was going through the medical examiner's mind. "Don't worry, you're safe here. We're putting someone outside of your room to make sure no one gets to you."

The detective punched the pillows on her chair and stuffed them behind her back. "And I'll stay, too." She curled up into the chair and rested her head on the pillows right opposite Maura's head on the bed. "Compared to that orange monstrosity of a chair in your office, this one here's a real winner."

A smile of relief played on Maura's lips as she remembered the first time Jane had vainly attempted to find a comfortable seating position in her office chair. As Jane caught the blonde watching her, their eyes locked and for a brief moment, everything else was forgotten. For now, it was just the two of them reunited in the small hospital room.

"Thank you for saving me, Jane," Maura finally whispered.

"Anytime," Jane assured her and protectively enclosed Maura's hand in her own.

Without the need for further words, they held each other's gaze until the stress and anguishes of the past few days finally took their toll and both women synchronously drifted off into a dreamless sleep.


	19. Chapter 19

_**A/N: **Time to slowly tie up all those loose ends.. Didn't I read somewhere that I should only publish the final chapters if there are a bazillion reviews & favs or something? Or cookies? Hmm... :-o_

* * *

When the first beams of the early afternoon sun peeked into Maura's room and tickled her nose, the blonde slowly opened her eyes. After a moment of confusion and disorientation, her eyes adjusted to the light and all the memories poured right back into her mind. And though she knew she was safe in her hospital room, she instinctively searched for Jane. When she found her sitting in the chair next to the bed, dressed in a fresh shirt that Frost had brought her and absentmindedly flipping through a police file, Maura's pulse slowed down and her fear gradually ebbed away.

"I don't even get breakfast in bed?" she joked.

Jane looked up from her files and smiled at ease. "You mean lunch in bed?"

Maura arched her eyebrows in surprise. "What time is it?"

"Half past noon," the detective informed her.

"Oh, goodness," the blonde sighed and sleepily rubbed her head.

"What? Should I have woken you for your morning run?" Jane teased.

Maura carefully sat up a little, leaned against the pillows in her back, and tried to suppress a yawn — with limited success. "I guess, now I know how you feel when you don't get your coffee."

"Does that mean you'll finally stop nagging me about my caffeine intake?" the brunette asked hopefully.

"I don't think so," the medical examiner stated rather factually.

"Well, you'll be pleased to hear that I won't be having any more of that dishwater they call coffee in here," Jane grimaced. "Anyway, your doctor said you could be discharged tonight if you're feeling okay."

The blonde's face lit up with relief. Despite her medical training and familiarity with even the tiniest aspect of the human body, she hated being a patient in a hospital herself.

"You'd need someone to look after you though," Jane added. "Just in case, you know. And to get you something to eat and all that."

Maura pondered the situation for a second. "Do you think I could… I mean… would it be okay if I asked your mother to—"

"What? No!"

The medical examiner wrinkled her forehead, unsure how to react to the detective's blunt refusal.

"Hello? Remember me?" Jane waved at Maura. "I'm your best friend, so it's _my_ task to take care of you."

"But you can't cook!"

Jane arched her eyebrows. "Excuse me?!"

"And you do need to rest at some point, Jane," Maura quickly added trying to cover up her blunder.

"Well, it's not your job right now to worry about my well-being, Dr. Isles," Jane objected. "Plus, there'll be plenty of opportunity for me to get some rest. All I'll have to do is make sure you stay put, heat up some soup, and feed your turtle."

"Tortoise," Maura instinctively corrected her. She knew that the detective was very much aware of the difference between turtles and tortoises by now. But Jane seemed to take special delight in teasing Maura with her incorrect terminology. And to be honest, Maura enjoyed the habitual back-and-forth as much as Jane did.

"Eh, whatever," Jane grunted, a cheeky smile playing around her lips.

A short, shy knock interrupted their friendly banter, and both women turned to the door. When Angela peeked into the room, Maura greeted her with a smile, whereas Jane focused back on her files and pretended to be busy.

"Hello, Maura, how are you feeling?" the Rizzoli matriarch asked caringly as she approached Maura's bed.

"Much better already, thank you," the blonde stated. As she noticed the cup of coffee from the Division One Café in Angela's hand, she glanced at Jane and frowned at her unusual reserve towards her mother.

Mama Rizzoli herself seemed equally unsure about how to deal with her daughter's behavior and sheepishly offered her the cup with the still steaming brew. "I brought you coffee, Jane. I know how watery the stuff is they're serving in here…"

The brunette just shook her head without looking up. "Thanks, but it's not that bad."

Maura frowned at the detective's blatant lie and questioningly looked at Angela, who put the cup on the nightstand and pouted her lips. "Well, I'm gonna go talk to the nurse to make sure you get a decent lunch, Maura. It's important for you to eat well now."

Before Maura could object, Angela had already scurried out of the room. The medical examiner turned to Jane and stared at her friend with irritation. "Okay, what was that all about?"

The detective shrugged, her eyes still glued to her files. "Nothing."

"Jane?!"

Slightly startled by Maura's harsher tone, the brunette finally looked up.

"What's going on?" the medical examiner demanded to know.

Jane sighed. "I might have… uh… blamed Ma for your kidnapping."

"You did what?!" Maura gasped.

"Well, she'd been out with Cavanaugh again and…," Jane tried to explain her frustration but realized that she couldn't put into words why exactly she was mad at her mother. "I mean, if she had been home the other night—"

"Then what?" Maura cut her off. "It wouldn't have changed anything. Maybe he would've gotten to me at another time then, or worse, what if he had hurt your mother?"

Jane rubbed her eyes, unable to come up with another reasonable argument.

"You'd better apologize to her, Jane."

"Uh-huh," the detective grumbled into her hands but didn't move.

"I mean right now!" Maura ordered.

Jane looked up in amusement, oblivious to the seriousness in the medical examiner's voice. "Come on, we got a serial killer running around out there. I got more important things to do."

Seeing that Jane had no intention to go after her mother, Maura sighed and heaved herself up from her pillows.

"What? What are you doing?" Jane asked in confusion.

"Well, if you won't apologize to your mother, I will," Maura declared and pushed back her blanket.

"Why the hell would you apologize to her?"

"Because I'm friends with someone as stubborn as you."

When it dawned on Jane that she wouldn't win this fight, she grumpily dragged herself out of her chair. "For God's sake, lie back down, Maura!"

"You're going to apologize to her?" Maura asked just to be sure.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Jane grunted.

"Good." Exhausted, the medical examiner sank back into her bed. "I don't think I would've made it past that door."

Jane tried to put on her most disgruntled face, but since the blonde's encouraging smile instantly nipped all her frustration in the bud, she just rolled her eyes in feigned annoyance and headed out of the room.

Maura chuckled to herself and crawled back under her blanket. Just as she had gotten comfortable again, Jane rushed back into the room, snagged the cup of coffee from the nightstand, and grinned. "If I have to apologize, I might as well take this…," she declared and darted out of the room. The medical examiner shook her head in amusement, buried her face in the pillows, and smilingly dozed off.

Outside of Maura's room, Jane let her eyes wander around until she spotted her mother in front of a vending machine at the other end of the hallway. She took a sip from her coffee and strolled towards Angela.

When she reached her, the Rizzoli matriarch had just put another coin in the machine and was contemplating her choice.

"Don't buy those granola bars," Jane warned her in an apologetic voice. "They're dry and icky."

When Angela kept staring at the machine's assortment of snacks, Jane slouched her shoulders and let out a sigh. "I'm sorry, Ma. I'm… I shouldn't have yelled at you the other day. It really wasn't your fault."

Pondering whether or not to accept Jane's apology, the older Rizzoli woman entered a few numbers into the vending machine's keypad and waited for a chocolate bar to drop down. She picked it from the tray and finally turned to her daughter, her eyes already giving away that she had long forgiven Jane for her harsh words.

"I know you were stressed," Angela said understandingly.

"Yeah, but still," Jane objected. "I shouldn't have let it out on you. I'm really sorry. And I'm happy for you and the lieutenant. He's a good guy, and after everything Pop put you through…"

As she noticed Jane's remorseful puppy-dog eyes, Mama Rizzoli seized her chance at one of those rare mother-daughter cuddling moments. "I will forgive you if you let me hug you."

Knowing that there was no escape this time, Jane grimaced and leaned forward. "Help yourself."

Delighted, Angela flung her arms around Jane and enjoyed every second of the awkwardly long embrace. She probably wouldn't have let go off her daughter for at least another hour if it hadn't been for the sudden buzzing of the detective's phone.

Squirming free of her mother's arms, Jane whipped out her phone and checked the caller ID before answering. "Hey, Frost, what have you got?" As she listened to the news from her partner, her posture became tenser and her eyes filled with determination. "I'm on my way," she said and ended the call.

"What is it?" Angela asked curiously.

"I gotta go," Jane declared and then hesitated. "Can you… stay with Maura for a while?"

"Of course," her mother eagerly agreed.

"But try not to drive her crazy, okay?" the detective grinned sheepishly and earned herself an admonishing gaze from the Rizzoli matriarch. "Love you, Ma," Jane quickly appeased her and dashed off.

* * *

When Jane entered the homicide squad room at Boston Police Headquarters in the early afternoon, she found Frost and Korsak in the middle of a heated argument in front of the white board and a map of Massachusetts.

"I'm telling you, it doesn't take more than two hours to Great Barrington," Frost claimed and demonstratively traced a route from Boston to the town in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts on the map in front of them. "Normal people don't stop at every picnic area to look for abandoned pets like you do!"

"Yeah, and normal people wouldn't abandon their pets in the first place," Korsak objected. "But there are enough nutjobs out there who do."

"Ahem," Jane cleared her throat and joined her two colleagues. "You kids having fun?"

"Mr. Snailpace here won't believe me that you can reach the Berkshires in about two hours," Frost complained.

The brunette tried hard not to laugh at the thought of her last trip on the highway with Korsak. "Come on, you've seen him drive. I'm surprised he can get there in less than a day."

"At least I'm not BPD's record holder with the most speeding tickets," Korsak retorted and mischievously grinned at Jane.

"Well, I just don't like wasting half my day on the road, that's all," Jane defended herself but then got serious. "Anyway, where is the husband?"

"Waiting in the interview room," Frost informed her and handed his partner a police file from his desk. "With a nice story…"

"Is that so?" Jane curiously arched her eyebrow and quickly studied the file with the summary of John Christle's arrest.

"Claims he's been in the Berkshires all week and sublet his house about two months ago," Korsak added.

"Yeah, right," the brunette snorted as the three of them headed down the hallway.

Once they had reached the interview rooms, Jane, Frost, and Korsak wordlessly entered a room on the right, in which John Christle was nervously seated at the table and clinging to an almost empty water bottle in his hands. Dressed in a scruffy shirt and dirt-stained pants, with a three-day stubble and bleary eyes, he looked like he could use a few hours in the drunk tank before being interviewed about his involvement in the West Roxbury killings.

Jane and Korsak sat down on the two chairs opposite their hung-over suspect, while Frost leaned against the wall behind them and attentively studied John Christle's face.

"Nice time of the year for a trip to the Berkshires, huh?" Jane started her interview and glanced at the police file in front of her.

"Not really," Christle shrugged apathetically.

"So what were you doing there?" the brunette followed up.

The interviewee impatiently rolled his eyes. "I've already told the other cops. I was mourning my wife because it would've been our fifth anniversary this week and we got married at that retreat."

"You mean the wife you cheated on?" Jane asked dryly.

"Jeez, you really wanna start this again?" Christle glared at the detectives. "I loved my wife, but at the time, we were having some issues and I made a mistake, alright? It happens… People make mistakes."

"Did you also mistakenly kill those three women in your house on Stratford Street?" Korsak interjected.

"No! I haven't been there in weeks," the suspect objected. "I… I can't go back there. After Darlene's death, I've tried to sell the house, but it's a buyer's market right now. So, when this guy showed up and wanted to rent the house for a few months, I gladly agreed."

"This guy…?" the sergeant wondered.

"Yeah, Jay or Jake or something… I don't remember his last name… It sounded foreign," Christle explained. "Said he had a temporary job in the area and couldn't find any other place to stay nearby. We've exchanged a few e-mails and then only met once for the key delivery."

"And I take it you have no written documentation of your arrangement?" Jane asked sardonically.

"Well, the house had been cleared out, and he paid upfront in cash," the suspect excused his casual business approach. "It didn't really matter to me."

The brunette browsed through her file and revealed a wedding photo that showed the Christles smiling happily ever after. She flipped it over and pointed at the _PICTURE PERFECT_ logo on the back. "You had your wedding shots taken by this Picture Perfect studio?"

John Christle nodded insecurely. "Yeah, we got all our photos taken by them. Darlene was interested in photography and went to a lot of the studio's workshops. Why does it matter?"

Jane leaned back and contemplatively studied the suspect's face. After a few moments, she whispered a faint "be right back — gotta check something" into Korsak's ear and left the room.

Christle nervously wiggled on his chair and glanced at Korsak and Frost. "I swear, I've been at the retreat in the Berkshires all week. You can check my credit card history and all that."

"Already done that," Korsak stated factually. "But you could've easily driven back and forth between Boston and Great Barrington. It's just a two-hour ride." The sergeant prankfully peeked at Frost, who gave him an approving smile.

"Look, I know you don't believe me," Christle insistently leaned forward. "But I really loved my wife, and I wish I could turn back time and bring her back, but I can't. I've fucked up, I know. But I didn't kill her… or those other women."

When Korsak and Frost responded with silence, the suspect rested his head on his hands in frustration. Before he could contemplate his current misery any further, the door swung open and Jane returned.

"Show me your face!" she demanded and expectantly stared at Christle.

"What?"

"Your face — let me see it!"

Hesitantly, the suspect let his hands sink down and revealed his face. The brunette squinted and thoroughly inspected the man's ruffled appearance. Apparently unhappy with the result, she grabbed the police file from the table, then signaled Frost and Korsak to follow her outside. Her two colleagues exchanged puzzled looks and curiously left the room with her, while John Christle remained behind in utter confusion.

"What's going on?" Frost asked as soon as the three of them had gathered outside.

"I just called Maura to ask if she could identify the killer," Jane explained. "She's not sure, but she said they had a fight and she scratched his face."

"Don't tell me this is another dead end," Korsak sighed. "You believe his story about that subtenant?"

"I don't know," the brunette shrugged. "Any news from CSRU and the crime lab?"

"They're working on it," Frost said. "They found DNA and various finger prints, but even if we match them to Christle, it doesn't necessarily mean he's our killer — it's his house after all."

"So what do we do?" Korsak asked.

Jane ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "Let's check every damn detail of his story… The sooner we figure this out, the better. And the crime lab had better find something…"

"What about him?" Frost nodded towards the room with John Christle still inside.

"Let him stew for a while," Jane grunted. "He's got a lot to think about."

"Alright," Frost and Korsak agreed in unison.

Jane checked her watch and hesitantly looked back and forth between her colleagues and the police file in her hand. "I… uh… I gotta pick up Maura from the hospital. Can you—?"

"Don't worry, we got this," the older sergeant assured her. "We'll call you as soon as we find anything."

"Okay, thanks, guys!" the brunette smiled in relief and waved with the file. "I'll see you later."


	20. Chapter 20

_**A/N: **The ending would probably be much quicker on TV, but I decided to stretch it a bit.. hope you don't mind. Will be posting the last two chapters later today to get everything up before heading into the weekend. :-)_

* * *

The sun had just begun to set when Jane and Maura arrived at the medical examiner's Beacon Hill home in the early evening hours. After Jane had pushed her way back to the hospital through the afternoon rush hour, they had been forced to wait a few more hours for Maura's doctor to finish emergency surgery on an auto accident victim before finally finding the time to give the blonde a check-up and allowing her to leave and recuperate at home. But while Maura had initially been rather cheerful in the car, her mood had turned more and more somber during the ride, and Jane hadn't failed to notice her anxious glances as soon as they had reached her driveway. Returning to the site of her kidnapping had inevitably sent Maura's mind back to that house on Stratford Street and to her torment at the hands of the still unidentified killer.

Thus, as they entered her home and were greeted by her giant tortoise in the hallway, Jane seized the chance to distract her friend and grinned at the blonde.

"So, Bass and I had an interesting conversation yesterday," she teased. "He said the only reason he's been moody lately is that you've put him on this crappy salad diet and canceled Burger Day."

The medical examiner squinted at the detective. "He's a herbivore. He doesn't eat meat."

The brunette defensively raised her hands. "Hey, don't look at me, I'm just telling you what he said."

Thankful for Jane's attempt to cheer her up, Maura playfully rolled her eyes and knelt down to pat the tortoise's head. "You love your salad, don't you?"

Caringly keeping an eye on her friend, Jane put her jacket, gun, and phone on the cupboard next to the couch and tossed the folder with BPD files she had brought along on the kitchen counter before heading to the freezer to retrieve a large cup of Maura's preferred ice-cream. When the medical examiner heaved herself onto one of the stools, slightly grimacing at an itch of her abdominal wound, Jane invitingly slid the ice-cream across the counter and got two spoons from a drawer. Upon reaching for the cup, Maura's eyes fell on a piece of paper that had slipped out of the detective's folder. She paused for a moment, trying to remember why the logo in the document's footer seemed so familiar, until realization suddenly hit her and her pulse shot up.

Alerted by the blonde's anxious gasp, Jane worriedly rushed to her side. "What is it?"

"This logo…," Maura pointed at the piece of paper. "It… it looks just like one of the tattoos on his arm."

"What?" the detective frowned and reached for the document. It was a copy of the _PICTURE PERFECT_ studio's website with the programmer's nifty logo in the style of Japanese kanji art at the bottom. "Are you sure?"

Maura swallowed hard at the memory and just nodded.

Jane let the news sink in and all of a sudden, everything made sense. _Of course! The programmer would have access to the photo studio's files and client profiles; he would know the Internet like the back of his hand and be able to stalk his victims online; and he would have the skills to hide his digital traces from our analysts._

The detective bolted to the cupboard, grabbed her phone, and excitedly called her colleagues at BPD. As soon as she heard her partner's voice at the other end of the line, she burst out her new insight. "Frost, it's the web designer. Maura recognized his logo from a tattoo on his arm…"

Impatiently pacing back and forth, Jane listened into her phone as Frost quickly put all the pieces of the puzzle together on his computer at work. "Try to find out if he did some web design for the last victim," she mused. "Maybe that's why we didn't find any direct connection between her and the other vics."

While waiting for her partner to confirm her hunch, Jane worriedly watched Maura as she trudged to the couch and sank down in the pillows, arms folded and visibly upset by the fresh memories of her recent ordeal. Still intently listening to Frost, the brunette reached for the ice-cream and spoons but then paused and frowned as her partner at BPD apparently ran into some obstacles on his computer. "Well, just figure out who he is. Azarov must have paid him at some point… Check his bank records, business registries, whatever. Just get me the name of that bastard!" She nervously tapped her foot and studied the copy of the photo studio's website again, then checked her watch and glanced at Maura on the couch. "Yeah… I'll stay here… just call me."

Jane hung up and cautiously walked to the couch, where she put the ice-cream cup and spoons on the table and plopped down next to Maura. "Wanna talk about it?" she encouragingly smiled at her friend.

The medical examiner shook her head and gazed at the floor. "No, I'm alright."

"I've just put that ice-cream cup on the table without a coaster, and you didn't complain about it," Jane pointed out. "You're not alright, Maura."

"It's just water stains… They don't really matter," Maura said quietly.

"Well, they usually matter to_ you_," the detective protested. "And I kinda like that."

The blonde sighed. "Can't we just forget about it?"

"Why? So you can throw stuff off of _your_ table in a few weeks from now?" Jane recalled her outburst at BPD the other night. "With all those scalpels and other sharp thingies you got down there, I don't think that'd be a good idea…" Even though Maura smiled at the thought, Jane still sorely missed the joyful sparkle that would normally brighten up the blonde's eyes. "Like you've said, sooner or later, we'll have to talk about these sort of things. And… you're usually right…"

"Since when?" Maura gratefully peeked at her from the side.

"Since always…," Jane admitted sheepishly.

Wearily, the medical examiner rubbed her cheeks, and as she felt the bruises on her temple, she knew that Jane was right. They'd have to talk about it. A lot, probably. And she'd have to make the first step at some point. "I'm… scared, okay? Every time I close my eyes, he's right there and… and I can smell him and I hear him yell…"

Jane comfortingly rubbed the small of Maura's back and remembered how she had experienced the same darkness, the fear, and the nightmares when Charles Hoyt had laid eyes on her, stabbed those scalpels through the bare flesh of her hands, and left her with scars for the rest of her life. And she hated the West Roxbury killer from the bottom of her heart for doing the same to Maura.

The medical examiner took another deep breath. "I know it's completely irrational to feel like that but—"

"No, it's not," the detective quickly objected. "It's completely _okay_ to feel like that, Maura."

"Well, I want it to stop," Maura defiantly declared with teary eyes. "How do I make it stop?"

"Wish I knew," Jane sighed and pulled Maura closer. She gently put her arms around the fragile blonde and held her in a protective embrace. "But we'll get through this."

For a little while, Maura quietly sobbed on the detective's shoulder, and Jane held out patiently until she finally felt her friend's breathing slow down and adjust to the steady drum of her own heart. Just when she thought the medical examiner had fallen asleep, she felt Maura stir in her arms.

"Jane?"

"Yes?"

"Could you put a coaster under that ice-cream cup on the table?"

Jane chuckled cheerfully and hugged the blonde a little tighter, while the ice-cream kept melting away.

* * *

As the first glimpses of sunlight dipped the house into a golden glow, Maura's eyes fluttered open and she slowly took in her surroundings. Wrapped in a woolen blanket on the couch in her great room, she lay snuggled into Jane's shoulder, who was still fast asleep with her curly dark hair framing the distinctive features of her face. Maura couldn't remember falling asleep herself, yet somehow Jane's presence and comfort had allowed her to doze off for at least a few hours.

But something had woken her. She tried to remember what it was. _Didn't I hear some noise? Oh, no… please, no. _A shiver ran up her spine. _What if he is here?_ Her muscles stiffened, and she warily peeked over the back of the couch towards the kitchen.

She instantly let out a sigh of relief when she saw the source of the noise. Behind the kitchen counter, Angela Rizzoli was busy chopping and mingling and stirring an assortment of breakfast ingredients. She was so immersed in her culinary endeavor that she noticed neither Maura watching her nor the noise she caused that had woken the medical examiner in the first place.

Maura checked the kitchen clock. 6:30 a.m. Wearily, she let her head sink into the cushions and wondered what to do. She loved Jane's mother as much as her own, but the temperament and candor of the Rizzoli matriarch could be quite overwhelming at times. Especially in the wee small hours of the morning. She glanced at Jane, whose steady breath and peaceful face concealed the stress and sorrows she had endured over the last few days.

Maura gently shook the detective's arm. "Jane," she whispered. The brunette moaned but didn't move. "Jane, wake up."

"Uh… what is it?" Jane blinked with sleepy eyes.

"It's 6:30," Maura stated rather factually.

"And…?" Jane stared at her with a mix of curiosity and anger.

"And your mother is already in my kitchen," the blonde quickly added.

Jane arched her eyebrow and glanced towards the kitchen, then grunted in amusement. "Told you not to ask her to take care of you."

"Well, I didn't, but she offered to make me breakfast. I couldn't say no…"

Before Maura could further ponder the consequences of her politeness, Angela finally looked up from her chopping board. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"Yes," Jane confirmed without hesitation. — "No," Maura denied in another bout of politeness. "Good morning, Angela."

"Morning, honey." Angela smiled at Maura, then expectantly looked towards her daughter hidden behind the couch's back. "Good morning, Jane."

"Morning, Ma." Jane waved her hand without bothering to turn around.

"I wanted to get your breakfast ready before I'll have to leave for the café." Angela studied Maura's face, her motherly instincts fully kicking in. "Would you like anything special?"

"I… uhh…" Maura wasn't craving anything in particular, but Jane tapped her arm and whispered, "Ask for chocolate bagels." The blonde hesitated, then turned to Angela and sheepishly asked, "Maybe some chocolate bagels?"

The Rizzoli matriarch gave her a reprimanding look. "Jane can have her bagels whenever she wants. Today _you_ get to choose."

"I really don't want anything special," Maura blushed. "Just some tea and pancakes?"

"You got it, sweetie." Angela whipped up some batter in a bowl, then decided her daughter had been hiding long enough. "Jane, why don't you get me some plates and cups already?"

The brunette rolled her eyes and groaned, earning her a sympathetic smile from Maura before she heaved herself up, grabbed Jane's hand, and pulled her towards the kitchen — despite the detective's annoyed grumbling.

When Jane dropped onto one of the stools and didn't show the slightest inclination to follow her mother's orders, Maura handed her an empty mug knowing quite well that they wouldn't get the detective to do anything else before a healthy dose of caffeine had jump-started her tired bones.

Jane grumpily shoved the mug towards her mother with demanding eyes. "Coffee."

Angela shook her head, but then poured Jane her much desired morning brew. "You're so not a morning person."

"Love you, too, Ma," Jane soothed her mother, then let the fine scent and taste of the steaming coffee tickle her senses.

Maura followed the Rizzoli women's exchange in amusement while placing plates and silverware on the counter. She slid onto the stool next to Jane and took in the sweet smell of the pancakes cooking on the stove. Even though she had only gotten a few hours of sleep, Maura had recovered much better than in the previous night. Being back in her own house, pampered by Angela's homemade treats, and safe in the knowledge that Jane would keep her from harm, she was finally beginning to feel like herself again. _I'll get through this,_ Maura thought and thankfully glanced at Jane.

The brunette was blissfully sipping on her coffee and getting ready to face the day. Although the webdesigner-turned-killer seemed to conduct his business with the same level of anonymity as his correspondence with BPD, Frost and Korsak would certainly find a way to track him down, and then things would heat up very quickly. Jane was a little reluctant to leave Maura though. But then again, the blonde was looking much better this morning. Maybe being back in her home would erase her fears and help her feel like herself again. _I sure hope so,_ Jane thought and optimistically glanced at Maura.

Their eyes locked and they exchanged a knowing smile. And for a brief moment, Jane saw that sparkle return to Maura's hazel eyes.

"Alright, who wants pancakes?" Angela exclaimed. She filled two plates and set them in front of Jane and Maura. "I've also prepared a little extra something for you, Maura," she joyfully announced and revealed another plate with a shiny green apple decorated with a carved-out face and chocolate sauce hair.

"Really, Ma?" Jane grimaced. "You're serving her Mr. Appleteeth?"

The older Rizzoli woman shrugged. "It always cheered _you _up when you were little."

"Oh, I like it," Maura quickly declared. "Thank you, Angela."

Angela gave Jane a self-confident look. "See! She likes it."

The detective shook her head, but before she could counter with a witty remark, her phone rang and signaled the end of their cozy morning get-together. "Rizzoli," she muttered into her phone, and her face immediately lit up as she listened to the person at the other end of the line. "Okay, I'm on my way."

Jane beamed at Maura and her mother. "That was Korsak. Looks like they found him!" She jumped off the kitchen stool, swigged down the rest of her coffee, and grabbed her jacket and gun from the cupboard next to the couch, then dashed towards the front door. "I gotta go!"

"What about your pancakes?" Angela called after her.

"Save them for later!" Jane shouted back from the hallway and stormed out of the house.

Still chewing on her own pancakes, Maura noticed Jane's car keys on the cupboard. She hurried to pick them up, briefly regretted it when she felt her wound protest against the sudden movement, and headed towards the front door. The very same second, the door flew open, and Jane came running back in.

"Have you seen my—"

Maura dangled Jane's keys in front of her face and the detective grabbed them with a thankful smile. She was about to dash off again but then hesitated and caringly looked at the blonde.

"You gonna be okay?"

"Don't worry," Maura assured her. "I have Mr. Appleteeth, remember?"

Jane chuckled and gave her a quick hug. "I'll see you later, alright?"

"Yes. Go, get him!"

"You bet I will!" Jane declared and turned to leave. "Bye, Ma!" she yelled through the house.

Maura closed the front door behind her and walked back to the kitchen. She and Angela exchanged a look of amusement. Yes, Detective Rizzoli was ready to chase the bad guys again. And this time, it was personal.


	21. Chapter 21

_**A/N: **Okay, so, the killer's motive and all that made total sense in my head.. if it doesn't make sense in yours, it probably means that one of us is crazy... :-D_

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When Jane arrived at the scene in Charlestown, she and Frost stopped their sedans almost simultaneously in front of the multi-story apartment building that had been identified as their killer's primary seat of residence. Both detectives jumped out of their cars, wearing bullet-proof vests and subconsciously tickling their guns with their fingers, and hurried over to Korsak and a few more cops, who had already gathered behind a corner that offered them protection and invisibility from the eyes of whoever might be watching them from inside the apartments.

"Well, look who's driving slower than my grandmother today…," Korsak teasingly greeted Frost.

"Is he in there?" Jane asked tensely before the younger detective could retort back at the sergeant.

"We're not sure yet, but a neighbor saw him come in last night." Korsak handed her a printout with a photo and a brief description of the man they had been chasing all week. "Jarrod Dansari," he informed her. "We traced back some of the payments he's received from the photo studio. That guy sure knows how to hide his tracks. He's got more fake names and identities than WITSEC."

As Jane stared at the photo of the bearded man who had almost killed her best friend, her face instinctively darkened and every fiber of her body itched to rush inside and just beat the hell out of Jarrod Dansari.

"And he's got several restraining orders issued against him in different states for stalking various women," Frost added and held up his tablet PC with a copy of Dansari's record. "We sent his fingerprints on file to the lab, and they matched them to some of those found in the house on Stratford Street."

"And what exactly is his connection to the Christles?" Jane asked.

"Well, Azarov says Jarrod Dansari participated in some of his workshops shortly before he hired him to design his website," Frost explained. "And supposedly, Darlene Christle also attended those workshops. Maybe that's how Dansari met her…"

"… and fell for her," the brunette finished her partner's thought.

"Yeah, but why kill her?" Frost wondered.

"Maybe she rejected him and he just snapped," Jane shrugged. "He stalks her just like he did with those other women, visits her at her house, gets too pushy, so she tries to defend herself with the knife and ends up dead. And then _he_ made that incoherent emergency call on the night of the supposed burglary."

"Could be," Korsak agreed. "And then he tried to recreate the scenario with our three victims because he wants to change the outcome. I've seen it before in other cases — people do all kinds of crazy things when they cannot accept the loss of someone they loved…"

"… or were obsessed with," Jane added.

Before they could elaborate further on the killer's precise motive, one of the other cops tapped Korsak on his shoulder. "We're ready to go in."

The sergeant nodded at the cop, then turned back to Jane. "His apartment's on the top floor. You ready to lock him up?"

"Hell, yeah," the brunette declared and determinedly followed the other cops towards the apartment building's entrance.

Once inside the apartment complex, which was organized into two wings to the left and right of the lobby, the whole team strategically split up and began to secure every staircase, every elevator, and every exit of the building before cautiously advancing to the next higher floor. Most of the hallways lay silent and dark, since it was still rather early in the morning and most residents were either sound asleep or already on their way to work and completely unaware of the action unfolding around their homes. And the few who happened to leave their apartments and bumped into the police squad darting down the hallways were quickly shoved back inside and told to remain quiet until further notice.

When Jane, Frost, and Korsak as well as two more cops reached the top floor via the main stairwell, the three BPD detectives opted for the wing on their left and signaled the other two officers to secure the one on the right.

"Apartment 42b," Frost whispered as they briefly paused in front of a floor plan on the wall before purposefully hurrying towards the apartment with that very number at the end of the hallway.

Just ten feet away from their destination, the trio's mission was suddenly interrupted when a door to their right opened and a young mother with two toddlers stepped outside. While the woman's little girl curiously eyed the tall strangers looking back at her with equally surprised eyes, her brother excitedly jumped up and down and squealed. "Look, Mommy, they have guns!"

"Shhh, shhh, shhh," Korsak instantly tried to calm him down and gently pushed him towards his mother. "Be quiet—"

"What's going on?" the mother inquired with a mix of curiosity and fear.

"We need you to go back inside," the sergeant informed her and tried to prevent the little boy from reaching for his weapon. Noticing Jane's and Frost's impatient glare, Korsak lifted the toddler up and carried him back into his home, followed by his utterly confused mother and sister.

Left on their own for now, Jane and Frost finally reached Dansari's apartment and raised their guns. Without further ado, Frost kicked in the door, and the two detectives stormed inside.

Once they had passed through a small entrance area with an empty bathroom and a walk-in closet, they found themselves standing in the apartment's sparsely furnished great room and instantly knew that they had found the right place. The walls were adorned with enlarged photos depicting different blonde women in various scenes of everyday life, and there was little doubt that these pictures had been snapped without their consent.

Wondering whether they had just been thrust right into a museum with a creepy special exhibition on blondes, Jane and Frost grimaced at each other before wordlessly agreeing on their next moves. Since two hallways in opposite directions led away from the great room, the brunette signaled her partner to take the one to his left, while she herself tiptoed towards the one to her right. When one of the other cops followed them into the great room and squinted in disgust at the photos on the wall, Jane firmly waved at him to stay right there in case the apartment's resident would suddenly jump out from behind a corner and try to escape through the front door.

With tense muscles and a fresh wave of adrenaline surging in her veins, Jane advanced down the hallway, turned around a corner, and suddenly froze when a faint whimpering from the last room on the left reached her ears. Clutching her gun until her knuckles turned white, the detective approached the door that had been left ajar, took a deep breath, then kicked it open.

There he was. In a room crammed with computers, racks full of gadgets, and numerous cables lying around, Jarrod Dansari was crouched into an office swivel chair next to the window, his right side towards Jane, and staring at a three-monitor setup on his desk in front of him. As if in a daze, he seemed completely oblivious to her presence and unwaveringly kept his eyes glued to his screens. The brunette cautiously stepped into the room, her gun aimed straight at his face, which was marked by a long scratch on his cheek.

"It's about time we met, Jarrod," she said sardonically.

When Dansari still didn't move, Jane took three steps to the left to get a better view of the three displays and instantly understood the reason for the man's fixation. The screens on the left and the right were filled with videos of the blonde women who had recently died in that house on Stratford Street, whereas the larger screen in the middle was reserved for a video of Darlene Christle crouched in that same dark corner, her body bleeding and jerking until it fell limp and slumped down. As the man winced at the scene and stroked the dead woman's body on his screen, Jane frowned and her fingers instinctively hugged the trigger of her gun. _Just give me a reason to shoot you! Come on!_

"Why isn't she coming back?" the man cried, his bloodshot eyes still locked at Darlene's body. "Why is she still gone?"

"Because you killed her," Jane said unemotionally and peeked towards the door hoping to see Frost or another cop.

"No… I… I didn't… no…," he stuttered.

"You went to her house on that December night, didn't you?" the detective seized her chance to finally find out the truth.

"I just… just wanted to talk to her… I wanted… Her husband, he wasn't good for her…," the man clenched his fist in anger.

"But you were?" Jane pushed a little further.

"Yes! _I_ would have loved her," Dansari declared without hesitation before his voice filled with hate. "Not like her husband… That ungrateful bastard cheated on her, you know that?"

"And what happened when you arrived at her house, Jarrod?"

"I… I told her I loved her… and… and that she should leave that asshole… but… she… she wanted to send me away."

Jane nervously tightened her grip on her gun. "So you killed her?"

"No!" Dansari exclaimed insistently. "But… she wanted to go back to her husband! Can you believe that? I… I couldn't let her do that! I just wanted her to understand that she _couldn't do that!_ Someone needed to save her from him! And… and suddenly she had this knife… and she wouldn't let me talk to her…" The man shook his head in despair. "I… I didn't wanna hurt her… She just fell… It… it wasn't my fault…"

"And then you called the police from that phone near her house?" Jane gradually put the pieces of the puzzle together.

"Yes…," the man said and suddenly spun around and reproachfully glared at the detective. "And you could have saved her! Why didn't you save her?"

For a brief moment, a deep and profound sadness flashed over Dansari's face and overshadowed the blazes of madness in his eyes. And despite everything he had done and all the worries he had caused, somewhere deep down inside, Jane couldn't help but feel sorry for the man. Maybe he was crazy and dangerous and unable to tell right from wrong, but it had been the loss of someone he loved that had finally sent him over the edge. And as she remembered her own fury and desperation at the thought of losing Maura, she wondered whether despite all their differences, she and Dansari weren't that different after all.

As if on cue, Jane's eyes fell on one of the videos on the man's screens, and she gloomily recognized Maura's fragile body in that loathsome dusky corner. At the sight of her suffering friend, the detective instantly forgot her sympathetic feelings for the man, forcefully grabbed his right shoulder, and pinned him to the table.

"If it hadn't been for _you_, none of these women would have needed to be saved!" she hissed in his ear and pressed the barrel of her gun against his face.

The same moment, Frost finally appeared in the door frame and worriedly grasped the situation. "Jane, don't… He's not worth it…," he urged her and stepped towards the narrow space in Dansari's back so Jane wouldn't block his line of fire.

Still hoping for Dansari to give her a reason to blow away his face, the brunette locked eyes with Frost and hesitated, but eventually, she loosened her grip and approvingly nodded at her partner.

Frost lowered his gun, reached for his handcuffs, and stepped closer.

When she noticed that the harrowing images of Maura were still flickering over one of the screens, Jane resolutely reached for the power strip on the desk and turned off its main switch. All the monitors went black.

"The show is over," she said dryly.

What she hadn't expected though was how her interference with Dansari's video of Darlene Christle on the center screen would trigger his lurking lunacy. With the unbridled power of a maniac, the man roared and shoved her aside, then leaped to his feet and thereby sent his swivel chair flying backwards right into Frost's pelvis.

With both detectives momentarily out of balance, Dansari seized his chance, climbed through the window, and disappeared on the fire escape.

As soon as Jane had gotten back on her feet, she followed the man through the window, while Frost was desperately trying to untangle himself from the clutter of cables that he had stumbled into when trying to dodge the chair.

Once outside, Jane spotted Dansari on the ladder above, just a few steps ahead of her. _You gotta be kidding me,_ she cursed to herself as she chased him towards the roof.

Sending her one last lunatic glare from his crazy eyes, the man heaved himself onto the roof and disappeared out of sight.

With the right mix of caution and zeal, Jane climbed the last few steps of the ladder and peeked over the edge of the roof. When she spotted Dansari already twenty feet away, she angrily leaped onto the roof and raised her gun.

"Stop!" she yelled habitually, even though she secretly hoped he wouldn't comply.

And indeed, Dansari ignored her call and ran on.

For a second, Jane paused and realized that this was the chance she had been yearning for. As soon as her fingers found the trigger of her gun, all those images of Maura bleeding on the floor flooded back into her mind. _He deserves it. No one can blame me. If I don't stop him now, he'll kill again. I have to stop him! _She thought about the dead women, about Maura, about the danger Dansari still posed, and about the sadness in his eyes.

She made her decision, aimed her gun, and pulled the trigger.

_BANG._

The smoke and echo of the shot were still lingering in the air when Jarrod Dansari went down and hit the ground.

Still tensely clutching her gun, ready to fire again if required, Jane approached the man on the ground and watched indifferently as he clasped his bleeding calf and winced in pain.

The urge to just shoot him in the back had been strong. Very strong. But Jane's will to resist those darkest of all desires lurking deep inside her heart had been stronger. Even if she understood and maybe shared some of Jarrod Dansari's emotions, killing someone in cold blood would have flown in the face of everything she believed in.

With worry written all over his face, Frost appeared on the roof, closely followed by Korsak and another cop. Their anxious faces filled with relief when they saw Jane alive and Dansari nonresistant on the ground.

Once again, Frost reached for his handcuffs, knowingly smiled at Jane, and then tied up Dansari's hands. With the help of the other cop, he ruthlessly pulled the man onto his feet and ignored his whimpering.

As they dragged him away, Dansari turned to Jane. "I just wanted to save her… Don't you understand that?"

"I think I do," Jane admitted calmly and stepped closer. "And here's something I hope _you_ will understand." With that, she rammed her left fist into Dansari's jaw and sent him back to the ground. "Stay away from Maura!"

Frost and Korsak gloatingly looked at Dansari, obviously quite impressed by the brunette's left hook and approving of her sentiment.

As soon as Frost and the cop had pulled the man up again and led him off, Jane grimaced and hopped from one foot to the other while shaking her hurting hand. "Owieee…"

Korsak shook his head in amusement. "You're gonna regret that tomorrow."

"Nah, it was totally worth it," Jane said and rubbed her burning knuckles.

The sergeant smiled and gave her a fatherly pat on the back as they strolled towards the fire escape ladder.


	22. Chapter 22

_**A/N: **It's rather difficult not to get cheesy with those two.. aww.. I tried.. _

_(In case you got several e-mail alerts - I uploaded the previous chapter just a few minutes ago, so make sure you get them in the right order.)_

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When Jane finally parked her sedan in Maura's driveway in the late afternoon, the pain in her left hand had subsided but her knuckles had taken on an evenly distributed purple shade. "Damn it," she cursed and pulled the sleeve of her jacket over her hand. If Maura saw this, she would immediately switch into full doctor mode and want to examine Jane's hand for fractures and whatnot. All Jane wanted to do for the rest of the night, however, was to sink into the comfortable cushions on Maura's couch and relax. As long as her hand wouldn't start to hurt again, she'd be fine with whatever colorful shade it took on.

The detective got out of her car, inhaled a deep breath of the fresh October air, and walked to the entrance. She let herself in with her spare key and closed the door behind her, leaving all the stress of the past few days on the doorstep outside.

"Maura?" she called into the house.

"Over here," the medical examiner announced from the kitchen.

Jane followed Maura's voice and found her behind the counter pouring herself a cup of tea.

"Would you like some?" the blonde asked casually. She looked much better than the nights before, her cheeks full of life again and her eyes almost as sparkling and energetic as usual. Jane smiled and felt her heart jump with joy at the sight of her quickly recuperating friend.

"Jane?"

Maura's voice calling her name pulled her out of her thoughts. "Huh?"

"Would you like some tea?" the blonde repeated her question.

The brunette shook her head and focused her thoughts. "Nah, thanks. I'm good." As she approached the counter, a proud grin spread over her face. "We got him."

Maura looked up, relief filling her voice. "I know. I got your text." She sipped her tea and supportively smiled at Jane. "So, why exactly did he kill those poor women?"

"Well, basically, he was obsessed with the woman who used to live in that house," the detective explained. "Followed her every move, hid some cameras in her home, and who knows what else. And then one night, she confronted him about it and told him to leave her alone. They had a fight, things got out of control, and she fell into a knife and bled out in her own home."

"And he couldn't live with the guilt…," Maura inferred.

"Right. He even called the cops, but he was so out of it that he only gave them a bunch of baloney, and they couldn't find her in time."

"Which is why he ended up blaming the police for the woman's death?"

Jane nodded. "Yes. And I guess, after a while, his sick mind made him believe that he could somehow fix everything by recreating the whole scenario and changing its outcome."

Maura took a sip of her tea and contemplated the case.

"Frost and Korsak will go through all the old evidence files tomorrow and finally close the case of Darlene Christle's death," Jane added.

"What about you?" the medical examiner inquired.

"I, uh, decided to take a day off…," the detective admitted.

"Really?" the blonde asked in surprise.

"Yeah, but next time you wanna convince me to stay home, try doing it without getting kidnapped and all that," Jane suggested sheepishly.

"Okay, I'll try," Maura nodded and smiled, then her eyes caught a small package next to the sink waiting to be unpacked. "Oh, look what arrived today," she announced cheerfully and peeled open the brown paper. When she revealed two bottles of red wine, Jane arched her eyebrows in apprehension.

"Please, don't tell me I have to sit through another wine tasting today?!"

Maura chuckled and shook her head. "Don't worry. This one has already been selected for us. Chef Renaud sends his regards." She handed Jane a corkscrew. "Could you open it, and I get some glasses?"

"Only if we're going to have some of that yummy chocolate with it."

Maura rolled her eyes and pointed towards the couch table, where she had already placed a plate of said chocolate in anticipation of Jane's rather predictable cravings.

Jane smirked and reached for one of the wine bottles, while Maura got two Burgundy glasses out of the cupboard. When Jane habitually placed the corkscrew onto the bottle with her left hand and pressed its handle together, a sharp pain rushing through her fingers suddenly reminded her of the swelling on her knuckles. She involuntarily let out a quiet moan prompting Maura to turn around.

"Oh! What happened to your hand?" the blonde exclaimed at the sight of Jane's bruised fingers.

Instinctively, Jane played down the issue. "Nothing. It's fine."

Maura challengingly faced the detective. "Okay, prove it and make a fist with it."

Jane stubbornly took on the challenge, built herself up in front of Maura, and pointedly raised her left hand. With her most triumphant smile, she slowly clenched a fist. Or rather, she tried to do just that.

"I can see tears well up in your eyes from the pain," Maura stated factually and completely unimpressed.

Jane let her arm sink down and whimpered. "Ow."

"You're impossible," the medical examiner sighed as she headed to the freezer and retrieved an ice pack.

Back at the detective's side, she reached for Jane's hand. "Let me see."

"Don't make me go to the hospital tonight," Jane pleaded and took off her jacket.

Maura gave her a knowing smile. "You wouldn't listen to me anyway, would you?"

"Probably not," Jane smirked but immediately winced when Maura placed the ice on her knuckles. "Owww!"

The medical examiner wrapped the ice pack around the brunette's hand, nodded towards the couch, and picked up the wine and the two glasses. "How did it happen?" Maura inquired as they walked over to the couch.

"Well, I kind of… uh… let him know that what he did to you was not okay."

"You mean you went all badass on him?"

"Sort of," Jane admitted and plopped down on the couch. As she remembered how her unbridled thirst for revenge had almost made her lose control and shoot Dansari in the back, her voice took on a more contemplative tone. "For a moment, I just wanted to shoot him… right in the back, you know… and I almost did…," the detective confessed and uneasily peeked at Maura, who had sat down next to her and opened the wine.

When the blonde paused with concern, Jane gave her an appeasing look and smirked. "Come on, he almost killed you, Maura. He had it coming!"

"So, instead of shooting him, you decided to beat the crack out of him?" Maura asked, utterly unaware that she once again missed the correct idiom.

"Not the _crack_, Maura, the _crap_," Jane corrected her and suppressed a chuckle. "And yes, I did beat the crap out of him."

Maura shook her head in amusement and poured two glasses of wine. "You love playing badass, don't you?"

"Says the daughter of a mob boss," Jane teased.

"Hmm, maybe we should change sides and establish our own badass mob organization." The blonde pondered the thought for a moment. "You could do all the dirty work, and I'd get rid of the bodies." She winked at Jane and handed her one of the glasses.

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind for my next career change," Jane grinned and leaned back. She couldn't help but smile at the thought. "We would definitely own the city."

"Yes, we would," Maura agreed. "Cheers to that."

They both laughed and touched glasses. And after one hell of a week, life was finally perfect again.

...

**THE END**

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_**A/N:** So, yeah.. That's it for this one.. Thanks a bazillion times for actually reading until the end, whether in silence or with a review (bonus thanks to you reviewers!)! Anybody interested in some Jane & Maura one-shots? Or a full story with a bit more angst & badassery? Kinda debating which challenge to tackle next.. Thoughts?_


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